Gaara Gets A Girlfriend
by Gin-Juice
Summary: Wanted: Single woman, age 16-22, to date 19-year-old Kazekage. Nerves of steel and good interpersonal skills a must. Contact Temari or Kankuro. Serious inquiries only! (Gaara/Ino) (Shikamaru/Temari on the side)
1. The Situation

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Also, I just wanted to make it clear that this is NOT an OC romance story. I just read it over and realized it probably seemed like it was heading that way, but the OCs I make are really just for some added flavor.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Situation

"Okay- how's this: _Wanted: Full time housekeeper/cook for family of three. Frequent entertaining and overnight guests. Previous experience required. Contact Temari."_

"Knock it down to 'previous experience preferred,' and take out the part about overnight guests," Temari suggested. "It makes it sound like we're running a brothel or throwing sex parties or something."

Kankuro read the ad over again and frowned. "No, it doesn't. We need someone who can cook and clean for a big crowd, and knows how to deal with people. It makes sense to put that in there."

"That's something I can talk about with them during the interview," said Temari, taking a sip of her coffee. "We're going to scare people off with an ad like that. Or attract loonies."

"Well, you do know all about scaring people off and attracting loonies. _'Ideal applicant is patient, quiet, and not easily intimidated. Self-defense skills recommended.'_ That one was truly inspired."

Temari shrugged. "A couple decent applicants replied to that ad."

"You mean like the lady who told you the only self defense she needed was her good luck charm? Which happened to be a taxidermied rat she'd glued a party hat onto?"

"Okay, not her so much. But there was that older lady who used to work for the daimyo, remember? She was pretty good, I thought."

"Yeah, she was good. But-" Kankuro leaned in and dropped his voice to a confidential murmur- "the important thing here is to find someone who can get along with Coo-Coo Bananas. Someone he can tolerate, at the very least. You know that."

Coo-Coo Bananas, of course, was Gaara. The nickname wasn't intended to be cruel; Temari and Kankuro actually loved their younger brother dearly. But once, on one of the first occasions they'd spent time with him, they had seen him accidentally demolish a wall after their uncle Yashamaru told him he would have to wait until after dinner to have ice cream. Gaara himself was the person most upset and frightened by this, and despite Yashamaru's best efforts to calm him, his sand shield had gone on to knock over the refrigerator and smash all the plates while Gaara hid behind the couch and sobbed.

'Coo-Coo' or 'Bananas' alone hadn't been strong enough terms to describe the scene, so they had combined the two. The phrase stuck, and became a secret (and these days, affectionate) name the two of them used when they were alone together.

Gaara was no longer the unhinged Coo-Coo Bananas of days of yore- he was the Kazekage now, in fact- but he still had his moments.

Such as when their housekeeper had decided to retire to spend more time with her grandchildren. She'd been with the family for more than twenty years, and Kankuro and Temari had been sorry to see her leave, but Gaara was more concerned with Temari's announcement that she was going to look for a replacement.

"I do not want a stranger in my house."

"They won't be a stranger forever," Kankuro had cajoled. "Kaede-baa-chan was a stranger at one time, wasn't she? Now she's like part of the family."

"We're the only ones living here. We don't even need a housekeeper."

"Because Temari can do everything around here by herself, right?" Temari had asked sarcastically. "It's not like she has anything else to do, like be your advisor."

Gaara hated people who spoke in the third person. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"She has a point," said Kankuro. "None of us has the time to take care of the house. Not to mention the fact that we're all lousy cooks."

"We can learn to cook. It can't be that difficult."

"I'm going to put an ad in _The Suna Wire_," Temari had told him firmly. "I won't hire anyone without introducing you first, but we _need_ a housekeeper."

He'd agreed with some reluctance, but demanded final veto power when it came time to choose someone. So far, he'd been abusing it horribly.

No one was good enough. One had talked too much, one had moved too slow, the lady who'd kept house for the daimyo had smelled like menthol cough drops. Gaara hated menthol cough drops.

Gaara hated a lot of things, actually, including people who were too loud, people who were too shy, people who chewed a lot of gum, women with false nails, halogen lights, long-haired dog breeds, Jell-o, the sound cash registers made when they opened, and _especially _anything being different from what he was used to.

Some people called him neurotic. Temari and Kankuro knew better- he was Coo-Coo Bananas.

Either way, most of the people who'd applied for the job decided that he wouldn't be a good employer, and the handful of candidates he'd approved had turned it down. His siblings suspected he was only picking the ones he could tell were afraid of him.

The ad that Kankuro was writing right now was the eighth one so far, and each had generated fewer responses. And aside from Mrs. Menthol Cough Drops, the quality of those responses was getting worse and worse as the weeks wore on.

"Kankuro," Temari said seriously, "the important thing is just to get someone- _anyone_- to come in for an interview. There are only so many professional housekeepers in Suna, and I'm pretty sure we've chased most of them away already."

She got up and put her empty coffee cup in the sink. "We're almost out of options, here."

"I know," he sighed, tapping his pen against the table. "But what can we do? Being around new people is still so hard for him. He needs to feel comfortable."

Temari made an irritated noise. "He needs to get over it."

"He needs more practice making friends."

"He needs a smack upside the head."

"He needs to get laid."

Temari raised an eyebrow at him. "What? How would that help?"

"Well, you know," Kankuro shrugged. "It's kind of a turning point for guys. I didn't used to be this cool before I started getting girls."

There were so very many comebacks Temari could have made to that statement, she couldn't pick just one. "If you say so, Fonzie. I don't think Gaara is interested in that, though, and it's not going to help us find a housekeeper."

"You don't think he's interested?" Kankuro stopped tapping the pen. "You mean… you don't think Gaara's… gay, do you?"

"No," she snorted. "If he was gay, he'd be interested."

"Right." He rested his chin on his hand and looked thoughtful. "I don't think that's the problem. I mean, he's not exactly shy, and he's not exactly awkward, either. It's more like the thought of liking girls hasn't occurred to him yet."

"Since when is this a problem?" Temari asked. "Gaara can handle his own business."

"Oh, it's just something that's been on my mind, I guess. I think that it would be good for him, to find someone."

"You've got your head in the clouds," she accused. "Focus on the ad. We've got a delegate coming from Konoha next month to discuss trading, and we need someone here by then."

"Okay, right, the ad." Kankuro skimmed it again. "It's fine the way it is. This is what I'm going to give the _Wire_."

"Sex parties!" insisted Temari.

"No sex parties! They'll know what we mean." He slipped the ad into an envelope and got up. "I'll go drop it off now. Will I see you at the council meeting this afternoon?"

"You bet," she said. "We're going to be talking about the roadways again. Exciting stuff."

"SO exciting! Just the thought makes my loins tingle."

"Ew," Temari informed him.

{}{}{}{}{}

Kankuro's ad only got one answer, and Temari wanted to make it count.

She met their prospective housekeeper, a 30-something woman named Hitomi, at ten o'clock sharp in the kitchen. The first thing she noticed was that Hitomi was very professional looking, and very well-dressed. Temari herself had been training earlier, and had thrown on a worn blue dress and sandals with a broken strap when she got home. She crossed her arms over her chest self-consciously.

"So," she said as they sat at the kitchen table, "it says here on your resume that you were the head housemaid for the Shinto Clan for eight years. I've been to their house for dinner- it's a big estate."

"Yes, but they like to keep a small staff. I got a lot of experience helping out in the kitchen, playing ladies' maid to important guests, that sort of thing."

"Oh, that's good. We have important guests all the time, as I'm sure you can imagine. There are separate quarters for them to stay in, though, so you would spend most of your time just taking care of the main house, where my brothers and I live."

She paused. "We're very low-maintenance," she promised. "All three of us are very busy, so you would barely even see us, really. Especially the Kazekage. It would be like he wasn't even here."

"Alright," Hitomi said slowly, giving her an odd look.

"I only mention it because some applicants were a little intimidated by him. Because he's such an important person," she explained.

Hitomi gave her a gentle smile. "You'll find I'm quite used to serving important people," she assured her. "I know they can be a bit, ah, eccentric?"

Temari smiled back. It was clear they understood each other. She had a good feeling about this one.

"Why don't we go on the tour of the house?"

She showed Hitomi their own living quarters, then led her into the guest quarters, which were much more opulent. Twenty bedrooms, each with their own private bathroom, a parlor for intimate gatherings, a dining hall the size of a grand ballroom for larger ones, a small onsen that had been her father's idea, an indoor pool that had been her mother's idea, but had only ever been filled once.

Next was the office building. Kazekage tower had its own cleaning staff so their housekeeper would probably never even step foot in here, but she showed Hitomi her own private office, then Kankuro's, the council room, and some of the smaller conference rooms anyway. It was mostly to buy her some time before taking her to Gaara's office for his final appraisal.

Finally, it could be delayed no longer. Temari took a deep breath to calm herself, and began leading Hitomi up to the top floor.

"Don't let him scare you," she warned outside his door. "Just stay calm and keep your answers short, alright?"

Hitmoi nodded serenely.

Temari crossed her fingers for good luck and knocked.

"Enter."

Gaara was sitting at his desk doing paperwork, frowning down at an open scroll. He had a bad habit of getting ink on his fingers, which today was also smeared across his left cheek.

"Kazekage-sama," Temari said, "this is Hitomi- she's applying for the job as our housekeeper."

He looked up and glanced at Hitomi with disinterest. "I see."

"Do you have any questions for her?" Temari prompted. "I've already finished my interview and given her the tour."

He sighed almost inaudibly. "Are you planning on living here?"

"No, Kazekage-sama."

"Do you know how to cook chicken gizzards?"

"Yes, Kazekage-sama."

"Would you describe yourself as outgoing?"

"Only as outgoing as you want me to be, Kazekage-sama."

He stared at her blankly, which Temari knew meant he was sizing her up.

"Alright," he said, "I need to speak with my sister, if you'll excuse us."

Hitomi bowed. "Thank you, Kazekage-sama. And by the way," she said as she stepped into the hall to wait, "you have a bit of schmutz on your cheek."

The door clicked shut behind her, and for a moment the only sound in the office was the faint hum of the air conditioner.

"I don't like her," Gaara announced.

Temari rolled her eyes. "Why, because she had the audacity to tell you you've got ink on your face? It's not that big a deal."

"She called it 'schmutz,'" he said with a touch of disdain. "That's folksy. I hate people who talk folksy."

"Oh, come on, Gaara-"

"No. She's probably the type of person who decorates excessively for holidays and would put throw pillows embroidered with clichéd sayings on the sofa. That's how folksy people are. Find someone else."

He returned to his paperwork.

"You know what?" Temari exploded. "I'm done with this! We're hiring that woman, because she's qualified, and she's nice, and there's nothing wrong with her aside from the fact that you don't know her yet. I am _so_ tired of all your little hang-ups, Gaara. You need to learn to just… go with the flow, sometimes."

He folded up the scroll and regarded her coolly.

"We agreed that we would not hire anyone unless I approved of them," he said in a neutral tone. "I've made my decision. I do not want that woman here."

They stared at each other. Finally, Temari bowed her head and sighed in defeat. Once Gaara had made up his mind about something, there was no point in arguing.

{}{}{}{}{}

After notifying Hitomi of his decision and apologizing profusely for wasting her time like this, Temari retreated to the living room and threw herself on the couch.

_Well,_ she thought, staring at the ceiling, _this is it._

Eight classified ads and over forty applicants had all led to nothing. Gaara was never going pick one, and who was there left to pick? It wasn't like Suna was overflowing with good candidates to begin with.

She could see their future- it was filled with lots of her own bland cooking, arguments about whose turn it was to do the dishes, and marathon laundry sessions on her days off. There would be frenzied attempts to prepare guest rooms in the hours before important diplomats arrived. She would waste entire afternoons trying to hunt down spare linens. She could just picture the looks on visitors' faces when she told them that they would have to make their own beds, and that there was no one but her to help their wives arrange their hair for state dinners.

She cringed. This was her life now.

"Excuse me."

She whipped around in alarm.

A young woman, no older than eighteen, stood hesitantly in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.

"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," she said, "but I wanted to make sure you knew I was here."

"Uh… who are you?"

"I'm Ine. I'm here about the housekeeping and cooking job. I only just called about it this morning- I talked to Kankuro on the phone, he said he was your brother. He asked me to come in at 10:30 and had me wait in the kitchen for you, because he told me you were interviewing someone else."

"Oh." Temari sank back into the couch. "He didn't tell me you were waiting. Sorry. But I have to say, I think the job's been cancelled. My other brother is on the fence about the whole thing."

"Ah, I see," said Ine. "Well, while I'm here, I might as well show you my resume, right?"

Her unease forgotten, she marched over and perched on the sofa next to Temari.

"Here!" She handed her a copy, and began explaining it before she even got a chance to read it over. "I don't have any housekeeping experience exactly, but I've been working at my uncle's inn since I was around twelve, and I've done just about every job in the place. Desk clerk, cook, waitress, maid, bartender, manager… all of it! So I'm real versatile. And, of course, since it's an inn, I'm used to dealing with all sorts of people. Making difficult customers happy is my special talent."

Temari put her resume down on the coffee table. "You sound almost exactly like what we're looking for," she said honestly, "but the Kazekage doesn't particularly want a new housekeeper. I'm sorry."

"Hmm." Ine twitched her nose and adjusted the rings on her fingers, looking thoughtful. "Maybe I could do a trial period? Unpaid, like for two or three days. Or, I could cook something for you! That way you could see if you like the stuff I make."

She was persistent, this one. Maybe she should let her cook something, just to make her happy- she'd get a free lunch out of it, at least. Temari gave her a critical look and wondered what Gaara would think.

Ine radiated youthful energy and a hopeful eagerness to please. She was wearing a mint green dress and plain black sandals with a little heel to them. Her toenails were painted blue. Her fingernails were painted bubblegum pink. She wore rings on eight of her fingers and one of her thumbs, all of which she kept fiddling with, a number of bracelets, and large hoop earrings. Some sort of tattoo- homemade, judging by the shaky line work- was peeking out from under her sleeve. Her hair was dyed pitch black, but mousy brown roots were growing out. She had on a lot of eye makeup.

Gaara would _hate_ her.

Suddenly, Temari was struck by an idea. "You know, I'm not very hungry right now," she said. The girl's face fell. "…but, I could really use a drink. You said something about bartending…?"

{}{}{}{}{}

Off to one side of the guest quarter's dining hall was a full bar, complete with a fully stocked liquor cabinet.

Ine scanned the dusty bottles while Temari settled herself on one of the stools.

"Do you have any ice?"

"There's a mini-fridge back there," Temari informed her. "I have no idea what's in it. We haven't used any of this stuff in… six years, maybe? Our old housekeeper used to stock up, though, just in case."

Ine nodded and opened the fridge. "Oh, you've got frozen raspberry juice!" she exclaimed. "I know what I'll make! It's better with fresh fruit, but this should be okay, too."

Temari watched her pour things into a cocktail mixer and shake it enthusiastically. She snatched a wine glass off the shelf, rinsed it off, and dipped the rim in a jar of sugar.

"Now," she said, turning to face Temari with the finished product, "tell me what you think."

Temari looked at the drink in front of her skeptically. The smell alone was sweet enough to rot her teeth, and it looked like Ine had put an awful lot of liquor into it, for a mid-day cocktail.

She took a sip. Well, she couldn't really taste any alcohol. That was a good sign, right?

"This is good," she commented.

She took another sip.

"This is really good! How much tequila is in here?"

"Enough," Ine said with a wink.

Temari grinned at her. This was a girl after her own heart.

{}{}{}{}{}

"How much is left in that mixer? Waste not, want not, my father used to say." Temari was feeling good. Well, her face was flushed, but she felt good aside from that.

Ine opened it. "Kind of a lot. I used the whole can of frozen raspberry mix, because you can't refreeze it once it's open."

"Good thinking. I'll have another one."

Ine, who really was a very obliging girl, refilled her glass.

"Thanks. So, tell me what working at inn is like."

"Oh, you know," sighed Ine, resting her elbows on the bar, "it gets to be like any other job after a while. We've got a reputation for lots of barfights, but even that gets old."

"Tell me about it. Civilians always think we have the most exciting job in the world, but you'd be surprised how routine being a ninja gets to be."

"At least you get to travel. What's the most interesting place you've ever been?"

Temari swirled her drink around in the glass and thought. "Well, my favorite place to go is Konoha. Not because it's interesting. I have a… friend there." She fixed Ine with a serious look. "Feel free to keep that information to yourself, now."

Ine gave her a knowing smile. "My lips are sealed."

{}{}{}{}{}

"Only noon? I guess I have time for one more."

Temari took a gulp of her third drink. "This is so good. None of us know anything about making drinks. Neither did Kaede- that was our old housekeeper. It's a shame, really, serving these at state dinners would make them _so _much more tolerable."

"Alcohol can make anything tolerable," agreed Ine. "I heard people used to do shots before having surgery."

"Hmm. I wonder if Gaara- I mean, the Kazekage- would loosen up some if I started feeding him beer. He doesn't drink, you know. Won't even toast with everyone else at formal events."

"Really?" Ine leaned forward. "What's he like in person? Not to be rude or nothing, but he always seems so much older than he really is. Like, serious, and mature, I mean."

"Mature? Gaara?" Temari snorted and took another sip of her cocktail. "Maybe in some ways. In other ways, he's like a two-year-old who throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way. Let me tell you, you won't even believe all the trouble I've had finding a housekeeper…"

{}{}{}{}{}

"…so then he said 'The smell of menthol reminds me of the hospital. Every time I was in a room with her, I would think of the hospital's budget, and I wouldn't be able to relax.' What kind of bizarro world reasoning is that?"

Temari drained her glass. "Is there any left? I guess I might as well finish it off. Waste not, want not, my father used to- wait, I already said that." She frowned. _How_ much tequila was in there?

"But anyway. The point is, Kankuro and I are starting to get a little worried about him. He was always grumpy, but he hasn't been this bad in years."

Ine put a fresh drink in front of her. "Maybe he's stressed," she suggested.

"I'm sure he is. We all are. But Ga- _the Kazekage_- can't seem to find a way to cope with it. He's up all hours of the night, working. He forgets to eat sometimes. He's so snappy with us these days, and every least little thing annoys him. And my friend in Konoha told me that he hasn't written to his good friend there in months. He always used to keep in touch with him, no matter how busy he was."

Temari drummed her fingers on the table. "I'm really wondering if there's more to it than stress. Kankuro said the other day that he thinks he needs to get laid, and that got me thinking that maybe he's… well, nevermind."

"No, go ahead," urged Ine. "You think maybe he's what?"

"I don't know how to describe it, exactly," Temari said. "It's like this: he was such an isolated kid, and then he was this total monster for a long time. And then he finally started moving past that, and he gets made Kazekage. He never got to just be normal, and now he's… well, he's Coo-Coo Bananas again."

"Coo-Coo Bananas?" Ine asked, sounding amused.

"Yeah. That's another thing to keep to yourself. I think his problem is, he missed some stages in his life, so as he gets older, he's becoming less and less able to fit in with everyone else. And now he's kind of like… backsliding."

Ine brightened. "My cousin had that!" she exclaimed. "He went to jail when he was fifteen and got out when he was eighteen, and he just didn't know how to act. He kept setting fires, and then he burned down the library so they sent him back to jail. He's much happier there."

"That was your cousin who burned down the library?" Temari asked. "Huh. Small world."

She took another sip of her drink and rested her head on her hand, suddenly feeling depressed. "I just want him to be happy," she said with a sigh. "Poor Coo-Coo Bananas."

Ine began rinsing out the now empty mixer. "Maybe you should introduce him to people," she said. "Maybe if he hung out with people his own age and did the same stuff they do, he'd feel more normal."

"Do you think so?" Temari raised her head and the room spun for a second. "I don't like interfering in his personal business, but… he's not really making any progress on his own."

"I think it's worth a try."

"Okay." Temari bit her lip and thought. "You said you just moved here, right? How are you making friends in the city?"

"Oh, well, I moved in with my boyfriend, and he always lived in Suna," Ine said with a shrug. "I've been meeting people through him, mostly."

Temari gasped. "That's what Kankuro meant! He finds a girl, she gets him out of the house, he starts-" she gestured vaguely- "interacting with people and being a part of things! Gaara needs a girlfriend!"

"Well, I thought maybe he should start with just a regular friend, and then-"

"No, no, a _girlfriend_. He can just stop talking to a friend, an actual girlfriend is harder to ignore. Trust me, I know."

She finished her drink and slapped the glass back onto the bar top.

"So- you're hired, I don't care what Gaara has to say about it. And your first job as housekeeper is to help me write a personal ad to put in _The Suna Wire._ We're going to get Gaara some dates!"


	2. The Shit Hits the Fan

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews and favorites, guys!

I don't like posting stuff until it's completely written, so updates should be pretty fast, just to let you know- I'm just messing around a little more with the last two chapters right now.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

Shit Hits the Fan

The next morning, Kankuro, who always got up earlier than everyone else, was surprised to find breakfast already made.

He sat at the table and stared longingly at the sausages. As a shinobi, he knew better than to eat something if he didn't know who had cooked it, but only someone made of raw evil would taint sausages that juicy and delicious-smelling with poison.

Temari must have woken up before him today and decided to make actual good food for once, or else Baki had dropped by and- who was _that_?

"Good morning!" the stranger greeted him. "I'm Ine, we met for a minute yesterday, remember?"

Looking at her closely, he thought that she did look sort of familiar. Her hair was tied back in a bandana today, though, and it made a world of difference. She had just come upstairs from the basement, writing on a small memo pad.

"Uh… hi. I guess you're our new housekeeper then?"

"Yeah! Miss Temari gave me the key and told me to just let myself in at six and get started." She beamed at him. "I wasn't sure what you all like to eat, so I just made a bunch of junk I found in the fridge."

"Oh. Okay. It all smells good. I usually like stuff like sausages and bacon and eggs for breakfast," he told her, serving himself liberally. "Temari just eats fruit and coffee."

"Ah, thanks!" She wrote this down on her memo pad. "What about the Kazekage?"

"He has tamago gohan with no soy sauce and nori on the side, with a cup of green tea," Kankuro recited. Gaara had had this exact breakfast every day for the last six years.

"Alright! I'll make that then." Ine set about preparing the rice. "I had some questions about things, like am I in charge of grocery shopping, and how much do you usually spend on food, and where are the linens kept, and how often do you like them changed, and what's all the furniture in the basement, and why-"

"Wait, I don't know any of that stuff," Kankuro interrupted. "You'd have to ask Temari. But… didn't she tell you any of that? Yesterday?"

"Oh, no. I didn't get to look around the house much," Ine hummed. "I haven't even met the Kazekage yet."

"You… uh…" Kankuro cleared his throat, hoping he'd misheard her. "Temari didn't take you up to his office?"

"Nope! She just told me I was hired and to come in today. Do you prefer coffee or tea? Or milk? Or juice? Or water?"

"Orange juice," Kankuro said faintly.

Temari had hired this girl, given her a key and run of the house, and _hadn't even told Gaara_? This was bad. This was so bad. Well, he wasn't going to get himself dragged into the inevitable battle that was coming. Nope. Not his department. He was going to finish his sausages as fast he could, go to his office, and stay there the rest of the day. Possibly the rest of the week.

Temari walked in, yawning.

"Morning," she mumbled. "Did anyone make coffee?"

"Sure thing, Miss Temari!"

Temari started, and stared at Ine with a stricken look on her face.

"Oh…my…God," she said under her breath.

Ine pushed a cup of coffee into her hands. "Sit down! Mister Kankuro told me you like fruit. What kind of fruit? I found grapes, and apples, and an orange, but it looks moldy, and grapefruit, and… what's wrong?"

"Um," said Temari. "Nothing. Nothing's wrong. You're here, and I hired you, and this is where we are now. This is what's happening."

She sat at the table. "I'll have grapefruit, please, with some sugar."

"Okay! I dropped that "thing" off at _The_ _Wire_ last night, just to let you know." She gave her a broad wink.

"Of course you did," said Temari, burying her face in her hands.

Kankuro leaned in towards his sister. "Temari," he whispered urgently, "what did you _do_? Did you hire this girl without telling Gaara first?"

"Yes." She straightened up and brushed off her skirt, adopting a look of determination. "I did. He's just going to have to deal with it, because I can't take it back now." She took a deep breath. "And there's something else I did, too, that I'll have to tell you about later, because he's going to be down here any min-"

"Good morning, Kazekage-sama!"

The siblings turned to see Gaara standing in the doorway, staring at Ine as though she was a circus sideshow.

"I'm Ine, your new housekeeper! Mister Kankuro told me you like tamago and green tea for breakfast, I'm making them for you right now."

Gaara's eyes shifted to his brother and sister without turning his head.

"Yeah, Gaara, this is our new housekeeper, who Temari hired," said Kankuro in as cheerful a voice as he could conjure at the moment. "We should all be nice, and not take anything out on her, since _Temari _hired her."

He didn't answer.

"Ine is highly qualified," Temari said lightly, sipping her coffee. "I'm sure she's going to do a wonderful job. Why don't you sit down?"

Stiffly, Gaara approached and sat at the table, two seats away from either of them. He focused his gaze back on Ine, who was oblivious.

"So! How about those Konoha delegates, huh?" Kankuro asked. "Have we heard who's coming yet?"

"Nara Shikamaru told me he thought he might get sent with his team," said Temari. "He's been trying to get them permanently appointed to a diplomatic assignment."

"Been talking to him a lot, Temari?" he questioned, grinning. "I know you-"

He was interrupted by Gaara, in front of whom Ine had just placed the tamago, batting his bowl off the table and against the wall.

He got up and stalked off, without saying a word.

Temari and Kankuro exchanged a significant glance. Neither of them could remember the last time he'd an outburst quite like _that_, but these little fits of pique had been getting increasingly common over the past few months.

Temari looked to Ine, who was picking the broken dish up off the floor.

"I'm sorry about that," she said. "He… it takes him some time to get used to people. He would never hurt you, though."

"It's okay," Ine said blithely. "Customers at the inn used to get angry all the time. A drunk guy stabbed me once, you know."

Kankuro frowned. "What inn did you work at?"

"It's called the Twilight Tavern, about twenty miles outside the city," she said. "My uncle owns it."

"That sounds familiar," he said, looking thoughtful.

"It's very small," she said briskly, dumping the broken shards of ceramic into the trash. "And it's out of the way. You're probably thinking of someplace else."

"Maybe. Anyway, I'm going to my office." He rose from his seat. "I'll see you this afternoon, Temari."

"Um," she said, remembering the ad, "are you free a little earlier than that?"

{}{}{}{}{}

Kankuro stared at her across his desk, slack-jawed.

"You're lying. You did _not_ really do that."

"I did," Temari confirmed. "It was the cocktails- those things are dangerous."

"Well… okay. Gaara probably doesn't read the classified ads, right?" Kankuro ran his hand through his hair. "He might not even see it."

"The rest of Suna will. What are we going to do when people start answering?"

"Who's this 'we?' I think you mean 'you.'"

She shook her head. "No, I put your name on it, too. I thought we'd both be able to handle the replies that way. Sorry."

"Oh, hell, _Temari_…"

"I KNOW, okay? I messed up. This is going to be a public relations disaster, you don't need to keep reminding me."

"Public…" he trailed off, realizing the full implications behind this.

If people thought Gaara had placed a personal ad, they would undoubtedly respond to such ad in droves. Who _wouldn't_ want to go on a date with their beloved Kazekage? And if lots of people responded, and every single one of them was turned away like a salesman during dinner….

Gaara the Beloved Kazekage would be getting an image makeover, probably into Gaara the Most Stuck-Up Asshole in Suna.

Oh, God.

Kankuro picked up a pen and began tapping it on his desk. "This isn't good. Temari, this really is not good."

"I'm aware," she sighed. "I keep going over ways in my head to fix it, and the only thing I can come up with is… well… he goes on a lot of dates. That's it."

"We could lie," Kankuro suggested. "We could say some random person did it as a joke."

"I thought about that. But _The Wire_ would do everything it could to protect its reputation, especially after... you know. You have to sign a form to place an ad, they would trace it right back to Ine, and then to us. And the absolute last thing in the world we need is to alienate the media."

"Ohhh," Kankuro groaned, banging his head on his desk. "You've single-handedly created our first scandal. Congratulations."

"Thanks," Temari said grimly. "I feel very accomplished."

They were silent for a moment, contemplating all the ways in which they were fucked.

"We have to tell him," she said. "There's nothing for it."

Kankuro gazed at her, watery-eyed. "I just want to say, I love you. He's honestly going to murder us for this, so I thought you ought to know."

{}{}{}{}{}

"Get out," Gaara said softly.

"Gaara, I-"

"Get. _Out_. You're both fired. You, Temari, are double fired. You are no longer my advisor, and no longer my sister."

He rose from his chair, giving her that dangerous, deranged look he used to wear back in the days of Shukaku.

"If you are still in my office by the time I move from behind this desk, you are as good as dead."

She paled, but still looked to Kankuro for permission to leave. He nodded. Of the two of them, he was the one closer to Gaara, and the one best able to calm him.

She fairly leapt out of her seat and hurried out the door.

"Who owns our house?" Gaara seethed. "Can I throw her out?"

"Gaara," Kankuro said gently, "what's the matter? You haven't been yourself lately."

He blinked in surprise at the sudden change in topic, but total derailment was the only way to end one of his bouts of temper, as Kankuro well knew.

"You're so moody and irritable these days. It's not like you."

"You are trying to distract me," he accused, dropping back to his seat. "It won't work. I will not forgive you for this."

Harsh words, but his tone of voice had softened from the murderous intent of just a moment ago.

"I know," said Kankuro. "We're really sorry. I know what a tough spot this puts you in."

Gaara glared at the wall.

"The thing is, though," Kankuro continued, "this might not be quite as bad as you're thinking. It'll give you a chance to connect with the people of Suna in a way you never have before, you know? And maybe- and this is just an outside chance, I know- you might find someone you can _really_ connect with. On a personal level."

"Don't be ridiculous," Gaara snapped. "Nothing good will come of this, and you know it."

Kankuro sighed. "To be honest, I think that maybe getting out of the house and socializing would be good for you. When was the last time you took a day off, or even an afternoon off, to do something for yourself?"

"When was the last time Suna took an afternoon off from needing a leader? I don't have _time_ for foolishness like this."

"Gaara… Temari shouldn't have done what she did, but her heart was in the right place; we're worried about you. Baki is worried about you. Even some of the council members are worried about you. You've been absolutely miserable, for months now- won't you please just talk to me?"

He tensed, glowering at Kankuro through narrowed eyes like there was something he was considering telling him, if he found him worthy; but, after a moment, he looked away.

"Nothing is wrong, aside from the fact that I now have to take time out of my schedule to take complete strangers to dinner. And that I need to find two new advisors. Get out of my office."

Kankuro watched him organize the papers on his desk. "Can we at least keep Ine? She's a good cook."

"_Leave._"

{}{}{}{}{}

After leaving Gaara's office, Temari went back to the house. She had no idea how serious he was about firing her, but she figured it would be best to keep her distance and let him cool off for awhile.

She found Ine attempting to take inventory of the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom, but progress was slow because she was positively beside herself with excitement.

"It's just that so many amazing things have happened today!" she gushed. "First, I was exploring the house, and guess what I found? A pool! Did you know that, that you have a _pool_ in your house?"

Temari was about to tell her that yes, she was aware that an entire room of her house was occupied by an enormous swimming pool, but held her tongue. There was no need to spoil Ine's fun- at least someone was having a good day.

"And then, my boyfriend called me- sorry, I hope you don't mind, we only talked for a minute- and he said he was so proud of me for finding a job, he decided to take me to dinner tonight, anywhere I want to go! And _then_, here's the most exciting part- you will never guess how many replies you got for your ad!"

"None?" she guessed hopefully.

"More!"

"Ten."

"More!"

"Fifty."

"Even more!"

More than fifty replies? Temari looked at her agape, her heart sinking. "A million?"

"No, not that many. A hundred and six!"

She beamed, waiting for her to share in her enthusiasm.

Temari groaned and plopped down onto the closed toilet. "Fabulous. Just wonderful."

"Isn't it? Obviously the Kazekage can't take them all out, so I think we should have a screening process," suggested Ine. "Everyone sends in a picture and a short description of themselves, and you can pick some from there."

"It's not a bad idea," Temari agreed. Being forced to go on a hundred and six dates would push Gaara straight over the edge; anything to weed a few people out would be helpful.

"Oh, good, because I already told everyone to do that." Ine rocked back on her heels, looking pleased with herself. "I decided to be proactive. My boyfriend says it impresses your boss, being proactive."

"Well, color me impressed, then. Any chance you could make some lunch?" Temari asked. "I'm starving."

"Sure thing, Miss Temari."

As she fried up some tempura, Ine asked how many dates she should try to whittle the selection down to.

"I know you're busy," she said, "so I thought I would probably be the one going through all the pictures and stuff, huh?"

"I don't know about that," said Temari, sorting through the mail at the kitchen table. "I might have just lost my job, so I'm going to have a lot more time on my hands from here on out."

Ine turned around in surprise. "Lost your job? But… you're the Kazekage's sister."

Temari explained the situation to her, beginning with her realization that she had fabricated a PR crisis, and ending with her banishment from Gaara's office.

Ine came and sat next to her when she'd finished, looking grave. "Am I fired, too?" she asked solemnly.

"No," Temari promised. "It's not your fault. I should have had better sense than to get drunk in the middle of the day and act a fool."

"Okay." Ine fiddled with the strings of her apron and twisted her rings around on her fingers. "I'm still sorry, though. My boyfriend is going to be _so_ disappointed in me."

Kankuro threw the door open and collapsed into a chair. "Well," he said to Temari, "do you want the good news, or the bad news?"

"Bad news first."

"We're both definitely fired. He's _pissed_. Also, he still won't tell me what's been up his ass lately, and I doubt he's going to confide in me anytime soon."

He fished around in his pockets, looking for a pen to tap, but settled for drumming his fingers when he couldn't find one.

"The good news is he's going to answer the ads, so at least the village won't hate him."

"It's something," said Temari. She reached out and put one hand over Kankuro's. "I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "You didn't deserve this."

He shrugged. "You told him exactly what happened, and he was still mad at me. What else could you do?"

They sat there, quiet for a few minutes, before Temari told him that a letter had just arrived from Konoha.

"It's from Shikamaru," she said. "He's coming with his team to update the trade agreement- they'll be here in three weeks."

Kankuro looked at her mournfully. "I guess now that we're unemployed, there's nothing holding you here anymore, is there?"

"Of course there is," she said. "I'm still a kunoichi of Suna. I have no idea what you're talking about, anyway."

"Yes, you do," he said.

Before they could discuss the matter further, Ine served lunch.

As Kankuro buried his woes under a mountain of tempura, he ruminated on how bleak his future really was.

He was out of a job, his brother hated him, his sister was probably going to run off to Konoha with her sort-of boyfriend, and he would most definitely not be getting any good missions anymore.

And worst of all, between Ine's cooking and having nothing to do with himself, he was going to get fat.

Fuck everything.

He took another helping of tempura.


	3. The First Date

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks once again for all the reviews and favorites, guys!

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

First Date

Over the next few days, photos and essays from lady friend-hopefuls came pouring in.

There were a number of good candidates- Temari, Kankuro, and Ine compiled a substantial pile of girls of the appropriate age, either gainfully employed or well-bred and bone idle, who came across as reasonably intelligent and classy.

They eliminated far, far more candidates, however, for reasons ranging from being several years too old to being an obvious lunatic.

There was the 82-year-old widow, self-described as 'outgoing, active, and slightly hard of hearing,' who thought she would be a good match so long as the Kazekage wasn't hoping for children someday.

There was the married 46-year-old mother of three who was looking for a 'casual encounter,' and, bizarrely, included pictures of her children with her reply.

There was a breathless letter from a 17-year-old girl that claimed she had known Gaara in a previous life, that it was fate that had led him to place this ad, and that if he was unavailable, she would also be glad to meet Kankuro.

Several women sent in nude photos, which disqualified them immediately, and one woman sent a pair of panties, which no one wanted to touch.

They also got one response from a man.

"What should we do with this one?" Temari asked, showing it to Kankuro. "I don't think he's into guys, but I feel like going on a date with one would show he's open-minded. Probably win us some fans from the gay community."

"'Open-minded' meaning 'bisexual?'"

"Shut up. I'm including it."

Making the switch from being advisers to being just two more ninjas in Suna's ranks was proving more difficult than Temari and Kankuro could have imagined, and, it appeared, had created a lot more work for Gaara than he'd probably thought it would.

The morning after he had been told of Temari's decision to send him on a quest for love, he had sent a very confused messenger to her bedroom door to deliver a mission description. It ordered her and Kankuro to arrange the times and locations of all the outings he would be going on, write up a brief description of his companion, and relay all communications and updates to him through the courier.

The mission was D-ranked and unpaid, but never in the history of all ninja-dom had an unpaid, D-rank mission generated more correspondence and taken up more of a Kage's time than this one.

There had been a lot of back and forth about how many people would make the final list, what types of places they would be going, when he was free, and whether or not he would be expected to bring each and every last one flowers, or candy, or some sort of token.

Then Temari had remembered her report on the education budget was due in two weeks. Then Kankuro wanted to remind him that his birthday was coming up, and he still needed to review the guest list. The courier had reported back that the Kazekage thought he would be able to finish Temari's report on time, but couldn't find the guest list anywhere in Kankuro's office, so they had spent a whole afternoon running him back and forth with suggestions of where to look.

It turned out to be on Gaara's desk the whole time. The courier had thought it was kind of funny, but Gaara didn't see the humor in it.

By the Friday after the ad had been placed, thirty eight women (and one man) out of the original hundred and six had been chosen. By that Saturday, Gaara was ready to go on his first ever date.

Temari sent him detailed instructions on what types of things to say and questions to ask, how to dress, and how to tell if a goodnight kiss was in order. Ine suggested also sending him a condom, but the messenger said he just wouldn't feel comfortable handing the Kazekage any form of birth control.

Kankuro scribbled down directions to an all-night pharmacy, just in case.

{}{}{}{}{}

Name: Watanabe Wakana

Age: 17

Occupation: Fish stall vendor

Likes: Celebrity gossip magazines, reality TV shows, dancing, YOU, Kazekage-sama!

Dislikes: Fish

Favorite Mythological Creature: Unicorns

{}{}{}{}{}

Gaara took a sip of his iced tea and glanced at the clock for the third time in twenty minutes.

He was meeting Watanabe Wakana at a fairy tale-themed restaurant in downtown Suna called Once Upon a Teriyaki. The waitresses dressed as old-timey peasants and called the customers 'my lord' or 'my lady.' The décor was all dragons and princesses, and when it was someone's birthday (such as the 8-year-old sitting in the next booth), the waitress would bang a gong, and a man dressed as a samurai would come out and do a dance.

Temari's instructions had claimed it was a very popular place. He was guessing she meant with children under the age of twelve.

Still, it was his date's choice, and his duty for the night was to make her happy… so long as she showed up. He wouldn't complain if she didn't come. He was actually starting to hope that she didn't come, because as the minutes stretched on, he was becoming more and more aware that his idea of what people do on dates was based solely on what he'd seen on television.

His understanding was that the end goal of dating was to find a spouse. But mentioning marriage on a first date was a huge faux pas, according to every sitcom he'd ever watched. But you _were_ supposed to talk about your dreams for the future and make it sound like you wanted to settle down, or else your date would tell her friends later that you were a 'commitment-phobe,' which he was sure was a bad thing. Unless she wasn't sure she wanted to get married herself, in which case she would tell her friends you were boring and came on too strong.

So the only way to have a successful date was to read her mind, and say whatever she wanted to hear.

Gaara sighed. This was all so confusing.

"Art thou ready to order, my lord?"

The waitress had been circling his table ever since he'd been seated, and was beginning to get impatient.

"No. I'm waiting for someone."

She curtsied. "Well enough, my lord, but mayhap I can tell you about our dinner specials? You have been waiting for your lady fair for nearly half an hour, and she hath yet to arrive."

"No thank you."

"Look, dude," she leaned in and whispered, "we're really busy tonight, I've got six other tables, and my manager keeps asking why I haven't served you anything yet. Can't you just order a hamburger and call it a night?"

He glared at her. "Those aren't my problems, and I don't want a hamburger. Go away."

"Very well, my lord!" she proclaimed, straightening up. "An order of Liquid Gold Cheese Fries! Excellent choice!"

She gave him a defiant look and left.

Sometimes, Gaara really missed the days when everyone was afraid of him. The worst part was that since becoming Kazekage, his public image had to be maintained at all costs, meaning that stiffing an obnoxious waitress in a kiddie restaurant on her tip was not an option.

"K-K-Kazekage-sama?"

A pretty girl, horribly overdressed in a slinky black evening gown, had approached the booth. She looked about ready to faint; she was clutching her purse like she was expecting to get mugged, her knees were trembling, and her face was alternately flushing pink and turning milk white.

"Yes," he said, standing up. He had a vague idea that gentlemen were supposed to stand until women were seated, and this was something one was expected to do on a date. Unless she found it an outdated display of male chauvinism. Maybe he should just sit back down. But that would look stupid at this point… which option would be less offensive, if he had to choose?

Watanabe Wakana resolved the matter by passing out.

{}{}{}{}{}

The first thing Gaara did upon returning to his office was send for a courier.

He thought it was safe to say that the evening had not gone well, but still wanted to check in with Temari and Kankuro.

Someone at the restaurant had called for an ambulance when it became clear that Wakana was not going to revive quickly, and the EMTs had told him that only friends and family were allowed to ride with patients, so he'd just paid for his food and left. The waitress had had the cheese fries he didn't want packed up, and handed them to him on his way out the door with a smug 'Fare thee well, my lord.'

And yet, he still had to tip her.

He began writing a note to Kankuro.

_Watanabe Wakana fainted as soon as she arrived at the restaurant. She was taken to the hospital. Do I have to take her out again?_

The messenger he'd sent for arrived moments later, looking wired. Too much coffee, probably- Gaara had noticed that nightshift workers were even more alert than people who kept regular hours.

Once the man had left, it occurred to him that he should have sent the cheese fries to Kankuro. He loved junk food like that, and God knew Gaara wasn't going to eat them. Oh, well. He'd just have the messenger bring them over when he came back with a reply.

He leaned back in his chair to wait.

His assumption was that the girl had been fried by overexcitement or nerves, but he couldn't deny that making someone faint before he'd even said 'hello' did not make him feel very good about himself. He wasn't _that_ hard to talk to, was he?

He supposed he shouldn't point fingers, though, because no one had a more difficult time talking with strangers than he did. He'd never fainted, but it was… challenging.

It was ironic, really. Back when he'd been a monster, he'd been alone. He didn't know how to talk to people outside of threatening them, and everyone had hated him. Today, he was the most popular Kazekage Suna had had in decades, and he was still alone. He still didn't know how to talk to people, and even though they liked him now, they apparently didn't know how to talk to him, either.

Where were all these friends and true companions Naruto had promised him? Naruto himself was hundreds of miles away. The people of the village loved him, but in a distant sort of way- they certainly weren't his friends. And he had always had a nagging feeling that Kankuro and Temari stuck around out of obligation rather than true affection, one that he believed had been confirmed since he fired them.

Every update or question they'd sent through the courier had been related to this whole personal ad fiasco, or projects they'd been working on as his advisers; they hadn't once asked him how he was, commented on his absence from the house, or tried to get their jobs back. They hadn't even sought him out in person.

Gaara wasn't sure how to reach out to people any more than he already had. This was his early childhood all over again, in some ways; at least when he was in his monster phase, he'd known what he was doing wrong.

The courier knocked at the door and let himself into the office. It might have been something of a liberty, but he'd been carrying so many messages between Gaara and his siblings over the last few days, he supposed he could let it slide.

Kankuro's answer was brief: _No. We'll send her a 'get well soon' card and say you can't go out with her again due to concerns for her health. Don't forget, you have a lunch date tomorrow afternoon. _

Would it have killed him to say 'I'm sorry your date didn't go well?' 'Better luck tomorrow?' Even just 'good night?'

"Will you need me to bring back a response, sir?"

Gaara shoved the cheese fries off his desk and into the trash can.

"No."

{}{}{}{}{}

"Kankuro! Over here!"

He spotted Baki waving to him across the bar.

"Here," he said, sliding Kankuro a beer as he settled onto the stool next to him. "It's some new thing they got in from Iwa- tastes like sweat and dish soap, but it was the special."

Kankuro took a sip and grimaced. "Good God, does anyone in Iwa have taste buds?"

"I warned you," said Baki. "But, on a serious note- what's all this I've been hearing about Gaara taking out a personal ad? There has to be a story there."

"You heard about that already?" Kankuro took another swallow of his beer. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It must be the talk of the town by now."

"Mmm, in some circles."

"Figures. Well- Gaara didn't take the ad out himself. Temari did. He blew up over it, fired both of us, and sent me a message saying his first date passed out at the restaurant right before I came down here to meet you. So, you know, business as usual at our house. How's your week been?"

"Can't complain. What possessed Temari to do something like that, if you don't mind me asking? She was always the smart one of the three of you."

"She'd had a few drinks. Our new housekeeper is apparently an amazing bartender. Oh, and that's another thing- she hired us a new housekeeper, also without checking with anyone else."

"Oh, yeah?" Baki asked, interested. "How's she doing?"

"She's fine. Gaara fired her from being his sister, but she's taking it pretty well, all things considered."

"No, I meant the housekeeper. Everything working out alright?"

Kankuro shrugged. "Yeah, she's been doing a good job, but she's kind of dippy, though." He looked at Baki side-long. "Why? Are you looking for someone to pick up around the bachelor pad for you?"

"No," said Baki, smiling slightly. "It's not a bachelor pad anymore, anyway."

"_Whaaat_? I know you didn't get married without telling us."

"Of course not. I've just acquired a live-in girlfriend, is all."

"Well!" said Kankuro. "Congratulations, then. I never even knew you had a girlfriend. Who is she?"

"A civilian. Remember that mission I went on to track down The Back-Alley Butcher? I swept in like a hero to save her from being butchered, she wanted to give me a bunch of coupons for taco-making kits as thanks-"

"Wait, what? Taco kits?"

"-we got to talking, and now we're together. Something right out of a romance novel."

"Good for you, man." Kankuro hunched over his beer and sighed. "It'd be great if Gaara could find a girl he liked, too. He's been getting even worse."

"Hmm. I know. I called him the other day in his office, and I could barely get two words out of him. But why are you so sure a girl would fix everything? Seems to me he just needs to go out and have some good times."

Kankuro snorted. "Get Gaara to go out and have fun? Have you ever met him?"

"Once or twice. What I'm thinking is this- his twentieth birthday is only a couple weeks away, right? And the Kazekage's birthday is always some big state affair, right? Instead of having a stuffy, formal dinner this year, why not throw a party that a 20-year-old would actually _want_ to go to?"

"Great idea! Except for the part where Gaara hates everyone and everything."

Baki smiled and shook his head. "Give it a try. He's never been to a real party before, he might decide he likes it. I used to be a stick in the mud, too, until I discovered beer was a thing."

Kankuro raised an eyebrow. "Are you telling me to get Gaara drunk? That's not very teacherly advice."

"I'm not your teacher anymore, am I?" Baki asked. "You three can go make all the bad decisions you want now, you're no longer my responsibility."

"So if I drink too much of this Iwa piss water-" he flicked his beer glass- "you're going to leave me puking in the street?"

"I'd probably just run off while you were in the bathroom," Baki said cheerfully. "Much less embarrassing for me that way."

"...Thanks, Baki-sensei."


	4. The Agreement

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews/favorites/follows everyone!

Also, just a quick note- Gaara's birthday is January 19th. Wikipedia tells me most of Japan celebrates New Year's on January 1st, but some places follow the Chinese calendar. Since the Naruto world is only kinda-sorta Japan, I figured I could just have them celebrate it on Chinese New Year (February 10th this year) without much of a problem.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Agreement

Name: Tora Kagome

Age: 18

Occupation: Legal aide

Likes: Foreign films, philosophy, baking, travel

Dislikes: Going to bars, gossip, people who are too judgmental

Her Ideal Date: Going to a quiet café where we can really talk, taking a walk through the park, maybe stopping for ice cream on the way home

{}{}{}{}{}

"I have some time before I need to get back to my office. Would you like to go for a walk?"

"Sure! We've been having such lovely weather for late December."

Gaara's second date, a lunch engagement at a little café only a few blocks from Kazekage tower, was going much better than the disaster the night before.

Tora Kagome was an intelligent, mild-mannered girl with dreams of someday becoming a lawyer. She was quite friendly, and had a way about her that made Gaara feel at ease; he knew he'd said a few things that could have been construed as strange (like, 'I breed cacti as a hobby. I like them because they're hard to kill, even when I smash the pots.'), but Kagome didn't seem to mind.

She was… likable.

Gaara paid the bill and they set off for the park.

"So, you haven't told me about your family yet. Your brother and sister work with you, right?"

"Actually, they've… decided to take their careers in a new direction. They're both going to return to the field, and function as ninjas again."

"Oh, I see." Kagome smiled at him, and he had a brief, queasy feeling in his stomach. It wasn't wholly unpleasant. Was this what people called 'butterflies?'

"I guess some people are still afraid of you, aren't they?" she asked.

He glanced at her, unsure of how to respond.

"But I'm not… _Shukaku_." She had stopped walking, and was gazing at him with an intense, hungry look.

"Uh…"

"Shh," she hushed, drawing closer. "You don't need to pretend with me. I understand you."

She rested her hands against his chest and nuzzled her face into his neck, inhaling his scent with a deep, shuddering breath.

"You smell like power," she sighed.

Gaara stood stock still. He wasn't sure what was going on anymore, but he was _completely_ sure he didn't like it. They were drawing looks from passers-by, wondering, probably, why the Kazekage was allowing a strange woman to nibble his earlobe in public.

He cleared his throat and disentangled her hand from his hair. "You misunderstand," he told her firmly. "Shukaku is no longer part of me."

"He was never a part of you, he _is_ you," she insisted, winding her arms around him. "As soon as I looked in your eyes, I knew."

"I…what…"

"Make love to me," she whispered.

"No thank you," said Gaara, attempting to free himself from her embrace as gently as he could. "I just remembered I have a meeting to get to."

She laughed throatily and tightened her grip. "You're being coy," she accused. "Don't tease me, my love."

"We just met."

"I can see into your soul," said Kagome, "and you can see into mine. Can't you feel the bond between us?"

He could feel heat rushing to his face, but he guessed that had more to do with the people stopping to gawk at them than a love connection.

"No," he snapped, shoving her off. "I am leaving."

"My love!" she cried desperately. "I've been waiting for you for so long! How can you treat me this way?"

"I'm not your love!"

She gasped. Tears began filling her eyes. "I knew you could be cruel," she choked out, "you wouldn't be you if you weren't. But-but-"

She broke down sobbing, and then, to Gaara's horror, began taking off her clothes.

"You see?" she demanded tearfully as she stepped out of her skirt. "You see what you're missing?"

"Alright, fine, I see," he said weakly. "Put your clothing back- No, not your underwear!"

Someone whistled.

Gaara had no idea what to do. He had always known there was a possibility he would one day be faced with a naked woman; he had never, in his wildest dreams, imagined that the confrontation would happen on a city street, in the middle of the day, just as the children from the local elementary school were coming outside for recess.

This was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Well, top five, for sure.

The children were crowding around the fence of the schoolyard to watch while two of the teachers tried desperately to herd them back inside- the third teacher stood with his arms crossed, glaring at Gaara in silent condemnation.

Gaara waved to him awkwardly.

"I'M YOUR DEMONIC BRIDE!" Tora Kagome wailed.

{}{}{}{}{}

Name: Hoshi Yoshi

Age: 21

Occupation: Animal control officer

Likes: Vegetarian food, live music, documentaries, men

Dislikes: The senseless and inhumane slaughter of animals for human consumption

Biggest Dream: To see animal cruelty become a capital offense

{}{}{}{}{}

To say that Gaara was apprehensive about his third date would have been an understatement.

Tora Kagome, as it turned out, did not have a mental illness, only an obsessive interest in the occult and a habit of taking allergy medication for some extra energy.

"She takes it to stay up to study for her legal classes," her mother had explained to him over the phone. "I've told her a thousand times to stay away from the stuff- she does the strangest things after a few days on those pills.

"Once, she made an official complaint against the postman because she got it into her head he was intercepting her love letters from Count Dracula. Why would Count Dracula be writing her letters, I ask you? The man is a thousand-year-old nobleman living in Transylvania! I'm sure he has better things to do with his time! Anyway, we've petitioned the drug stores to take it off the shelves."

He told her he would be more than willing to sign the petition, but requested that neither her nor her daughter ever contact him directly again.

He'd also fired off several angry messages to Temari and Kankuro, who told him he still had to meet the rest of people they'd chosen, they were sorry, and that they hoped he was alright. Kankuro had also asked him what he thought of Once Upon a Teriyaki, and if he'd like to have his birthday party there this year. Gaara did not dignify that question with a response.

This date, which called for him to take a man by the name of Hoshi Yoshi out for coffee one Wednesday afternoon, couldn't possibly go any worse than the first two, which was why he'd agreed to follow through with it.

He wasn't particularly worried about what people would think, seeing him out with a man; what did worry him was the chance that, like Tora Kagome, this person would want to get to know him intimately.

That was a place to which Gaara had no desire to go.

His date seemed normal enough, when he arrived at the coffee shop.

"Hello," he said, sitting down opposite Gaara. "I'm Yoshi. You must be the Kazekage."

"Yes. It's nice to meet you."

"You too, you too." Yoshi glanced around as though he was looking for something. "So, uh… I've never met someone through a personal ad before."

"Me neither."

"Yeah. Kind of weird isn't it? I was actually surprised you called me back. I'd never thought you were… you know." He made a gesture that might have been obscene, but Gaara couldn't be certain.

"Hmm."

"But, we're here now, and that's the important thing. Let me tell you about myself."

He launched into an explanation not of himself, but of the animal shelter he worked at. Gaara couldn't help but notice that when the waitress came to the table with his tea, Hoshi Yoshi's eyes darted to her abundant cleavage, just for a second.

"So you see, we're really hoping to expand- we really _need_ to expand- but it's just not in the budget right now." He heaved a dramatic sigh. "Oh, if only there was some person who cared about the stray animals in the village and had the authority to give us a grant! All our problems would be solved!

"But that's enough about me. Tell me about you."

"You're not gay," Gaara said bluntly.

He made a valiant attempt at looking offended. "I am gay! I am very gay! I am _flagrantly_ homosexual, sir! Look at these shoes!"

His shoes were very stylish, but footwear alone does not define one's sexual orientation.

"You were looking at the waitress's chest. You're wearing a wedding ring, and the tattoo on your arm says 'Hana.'"

"Oh." Hoshi Yoshi scowled down at his left arm. "Shit."

They were quiet for a moment.

Hoshi Yoshi cleared his throat. "So… uh… any chance we can get that grant to expand the animal shelter? We really do need more space."

"Perhaps. I will look into it, but I cannot make you any promises."

"Alright. Fair enough. Um… not that it's really any of my business, but are you actually gay? I'm just curious."

"No."

"My wife responded to your ad, too, you know, but didn't get called back- I don't suppose that _she_ could... "work" to get a grant?" Hoshi Yoshi waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"_No_."

{}{}{}{}{}

Name: Shinto Chizuko

Age: 19

Occupation: Dutiful daughter of the noble Shinto Clan/Homemaker

Likes: All feminine pursuits, planning ways to make a future husband happy

Dislikes: None/whatever Kazekage-sama dislikes

Note: I am responding to this advertisement on my daughter's behalf. She is a very shy girl, and did not want to be too forward. I hope that you will consider her nonetheless.

{}{}{}{}{}

Although they were by no means close, or even very familiar, Gaara and Shinto Chizuko had met several times before.

The Shinto Clan was considered nobility in Suna, and owned almost as much property as the village itself; as a result, they were very nearly as wealthy as the village itself. Slighting their daughter, whether she truly wanted to go out with Gaara or not, just would not do.

He didn't mind Chizuko, really. She was pretty in a generic way, quiet, polite, and considerably less snobbish than her mother, who he, Kankuro and Temari all found insufferable.

They met one Friday evening at an upscale seafood restaurant, black tie required, reservation only.

"Hello, Kazekage-sama," she said with a bow. "How are you?"

"Well enough. You?"

"Just fine, thank you. I think our table is ready."

They exchanged the usual social niceties about their families and the weather until the waiter served their drinks, at which point they both ran out of things to say.

This was the problem with two quiet people being left alone together, Gaara thought. They each wait for the other person to talk first.

He decided to take another stab at discussing the weather, but Chizuko hadn't come up with anything new to say about in the last ten minutes, so they spent the first course in awkward silence.

Although she wasn't saying anything, it was obvious Chizuko was becoming increasingly flustered as she worked her way through her sashimi, her fingers quivering, her eyes focused anywhere but on Gaara, face pale and drawn.

He was beginning to worry that she, too, might faint on him, when she dropped her chopsticks onto her plate and took a deep breath.

"Kazekage-sama," she said in a serious voice, "I am honored that you picked me to bring on a date, but I must be honest with you: my mother responded to your personal advertisement without my knowledge. I have no romantic interest in you. I'm sorry."

"That's alright," he assured her. "My sister took that ad out without _my_ knowledge, and I have no romantic interest in you, either."

"Oh." She relaxed and flashed him a shy smile. "That's good. Well, not good, but you know what I mean. May I ask why you agreed to a date with me, then?"

"It's a public relations thing," he told her. "I've been taking lots of women on dates. It hasn't been very enjoyable."

"I see," said Chizuko. "I'm sorry you've been put in this situation. My mother tries to set me up with men all the time- it gets tiring."

"You aren't interested in getting married?"

She bowed her head and flushed. "I wouldn't say that," she said. "Just not to anyone my mother chooses. You see, I… well, I have found a special person, but they're not someone my family would approve of."

"Oh." An idea was taking shape in Gaara's mind. It was a very good idea, he thought, such a good idea, in fact, that he could have kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier.

So he did kick himself, under the table. He discovered that it was difficult to kick yourself hard enough to make it hurt much. That was probably why no one ever learned lessons from kicking themselves.

He dropped to one knee and Chizuko's eyes widened.

"Shinto Chizuko," he said formally, "will you be my girlfriend?"

She stared at him. "Kazekage-sama," she said, "you don't need to get down on your knees to ask someone to be your girlfriend. That's only when you're proposing."

"I'm proposing that you become my girlfriend."

"Proposing _marriage_."

"…Oh." He got back into his seat, feeling stupid. TV had never taught him the proper procedure for asking someone to date you exclusively; he supposed it was fortunate that they were sitting in an alcove where no one could see them.

"So- will you?"

"But… I thought we just agreed we're not interested in each other. I don't understand."

"You want to be with someone your family won't allow you to be with; I don't want to be with anyone. We would appear to be a good match to your mother and the rest of Suna. If we pretended to be involved, everyone would be satisfied, and we would be free to do as we pleased."

Chizuko thought about it. "It sounds like a plan out of a romantic comedy," she said finally. "Do you really think it would work?"

"If we were both dedicated to it, then yes."

"Would we have to be… intimate?"

"Of course not."

"Well… alright." Chizuko folded her hands in her lap, looking very lady-like. "I accept. But what will we do if you find someone you do want to be with?"

Gaara snorted humorlessly. He had just screwed up asking someone to be his fake girlfriend; who in the world would ever want to be his real one?

"We can cross that bridge when we come to it."

{}{}{}{}{}

Temari and Kankuro had to be the busiest unemployed people in all of Suna.

Besides arranging all of Gaara's dates for him, the task of planning his birthday party had fallen on them, along with the responsibility for the New Year's celebrations. Kaede had always handled these things in the past, and next year, Ine would take over on her own- but after hearing some of her ideas, the siblings had agreed that this year, it would be best to supervise.

It was decided that New Year's would follow the typical pattern of a formal dinner followed by dancing, but everyone got creative with Gaara's birthday.

Ine had been overjoyed when Kankuro mentioned Baki's idea of a more fun, relaxed party, and immediately began making plans for it, most of which involved renting a bouncy castle. Kankuro had suggested going to a restaurant, but after Gaara ignored his query about Once Upon a Teriyaki, he began leaning more towards strippers. Temari insisted that would be inappropriate considering how many important guests would be in attendance, and that it wouldn't be nearly as fun as a murder mystery dinner party anyhow.

They had spent several days going around in circles until finally, Ine had struck pure gold: _pool party_.

"Everyone loves the beach!" she'd said. "We can fill up the pool, put lots of colorful flowers in there so it looks tropical, maybe get some palm tree decorations or something... and I'll tend bar! It would be _awesome_!"

Temari and Kankuro agreed that it would, indeed, be awesome, but it also created a lot more work. Finding someone to service a pool in a desert village, in the winter, proved challenging, and then there was the matter of alerting their guests that they would need come in swimwear. Reactions were mixed, to say the least.

But that was behind them now- the invitations were sent, the menu was set, the plan was in motion, and it was time for a karaoke break.

"JOOOOY TO THE WOOORLD! TO AAAALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS! Take it, Temari!"

She plucked her spoon/microphone off the table with a flourish and struck a pose. "JOY TO THE _FISHES_ IN THE DEEP BLUE SEA-"

"JOY, TO YOU AND MEEEE!" they chorused.

This, like the nickname Coo-Coo Bananas and the real truth about what had happened to the stuffed monkey he'd had when he was six, was just one of those things that they didn't share with Gaara. When they were young, their mother had had a 'Hits of the 70s' cassette tape that she used to play constantly. Kankuro had found the exact same playlist on CD several years ago, bought it, and revived the tradition of warbling along with Three Dog Night, Donna Summer, and ABBA in the evenings.

"_IF_ I WERE, THE _KING_ OF THE-"

"What are you doing?"

Kankuro froze. Temari's microphone clattered to the floor.

"We... uh... what are _you_ doing?"

"I came to inform you that you can cancel the rest of the dates you've arranged," said Gaara. "I have found a girlfriend."

"Really? That's great, man, congratulations!" Kankuro beamed at him in surprised delight. "You went out with Shinto Chizuko tonight, didn't you? Is she... you know, your girl now?"

"Yes."

"I always thought Chizuko was a nice girl," Temari chimed in. "We're glad for you, Gaara. I guess this means she'll be your escort to your birthday party? And New Year's?"

"I suppose so."

They all looked at each other while Chuck Negron proclaimed that he was a high life flyer, a rainbow rider, and a straight shooting son of a gun in the background.

"Okay. So that's great, thanks for letting us know," said Kankuro. "Um... do we get our jobs back now?"

Gaara felt a rush of satisfaction at finally having been asked, but scowled at his brother. "You do not. Good night."

"Good night," called Temari as he left the kitchen.

Kankuro turned to her once they were alone. "That was kind of strange," he pointed out.

"It was."

"He didn't seem very excited."

"He didn't."

"Huh."

They both thought the matter over silently, but there was nothing they could do about it right then.

"Want to sing 'Disco Inferno' next?"

"Fuck yes."


	5. The Party

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thank you guys so much for all the reviews/favorites/follows! I appreciate all of them.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Party

Chouji turned away quickly, and snatched the first greeting card his hand brushed against off the display in front of him. Ironically, it was an anniversary card.

He, Ino, and Shikamaru were trawling the aisles of The Gift Shop, Konoha's finest purveyor of chintzy home accents, porcelain animal figurines, and last-minute birthday presents. Things from The Gift Shop carried a certain message, and that message was 'I either don't know you very well or couldn't be bothered to think of something you'd actually like, so here's some random thing I bought. Happy Special Occasion.'

They were supposed to have headed off to Suna for their diplomatic mission half an hour ago, but Shikamaru had discovered only that morning, when the Godaime had summoned him to her office to entrust him with her gift for the Kazekage, that their visit would coincide with Gaara's birthday.

He'd insisted that the three of them also pick something to give him. He claimed it was the polite thing to do, but Chouji suspected he was thinking more of Temari than of her brother. He and Ino had agreed to it anyway, a decision Chouji now regretted.

At the jewelry counter to his left, Ino's boyfriend of the past six months, Hyuuga Tokuma, was perusing charm bracelets with a girl who was most definitely not Ino.

She was also most definitely not a cousin, sister, or platonic friend, if the way she was touching his arm and he was smiling at her was any indication.

This was not a good situation. Ino was only in the next aisle- should he tell her? Should he approach Tokuma? Should he pretend he hadn't seen anything and mind his own business? He thought he liked that option best, but he had a feeling Ino would not.

"Hey, Chouji," said a voice at his elbow, "what do you think of this?"

Ino stood there, holding up a ceramic panda. It had a glittery halo, Bermuda shorts, and a sign that read 'Welcome to the North Pole.'

"It's a cookie jar! It looks more like an accident at the panda factory, though, doesn't it? God, I love this store." She smiled at it affectionately. "Can you imagine giving this to someone as a…"

She trailed off. Chouji followed her gaze to Tokuma, who was shyly entwining his fingers with the girl's, with a sinking feeling.

"YOU!" she barked.

Tokuma and his companion started. Surprise flashed across his face, followed by guilt, and finally, something resembling sadness.

"Ino," he said gently, "I can-"

"No, shut up!" she snapped. "_I_ break up with _you_! And it's not because of her, it's because you're- you're short, and you- kiss all sloppy, and-and-and- ARGH!"

She grabbed a handful of cards off the rack and flung them at him before running out of the shop, angel panda Christmas cookie jar in hand.

Tokuma and Chouji regarded each other.

"I'm not picking those cards up," Chouji told him sternly.

{}{}{}{}{}

Being in a committed relationship, even a fake one, was a lot more work than Gaara had expected it to be.

In their first week and half together, he and Chizuko had gone on two "dates" that involved discussing their New Year's plans to death and some awkward hand-holding, gone to the Shinto estate once (after no fewer than twelve invitations), and spent three evenings dining with Temari and Kankuro, during which they repeatedly offered to excuse themselves to give the couple some 'alone time' and Ine nearly wet her pants with excitement over having a guest.

It was all very tiresome.

But, he supposed it was the best possible resolution to the whole thing, and he would have to make do. Although he wasn't developing any romantic feelings for Chizuko, he did find that having her around (or, more accurately, being forced to be around her) was tolerable.

She was too guarded and distant to really be called a friend, but he had never shared a secret with someone before. There were times, usually when someone was congratulating them on their new-found love, when they would lock eyes, and she would twist her mouth in exasperation, or give a little sigh that only he could hear; he felt, at those times, that there was a bond between them.

Knowing that he would have Chizuko at his side made even the prospect of going to a pool party a little less daunting, though it still sounded perfectly terrible.

"I don't understand," he'd said when Temari had revealed the plans for his birthday to him. "Is it a party or are we supposed to swim?"

"Both!" she'd explained. "You don't have to get in the pool if you don't want to, but it's going to be like a tropical theme. It'll be fun."

Gaara did not consider exercise fun and didn't much care for themes, and he told Temari so.

"Too late," she had said. "This is what we're doing. Maybe if you'd been more involved with the process, you could have had the party you wanted."

She had been getting very mouthy since he'd fired her. Kankuro had only been getting fat.

The relationship between the three of them wasn't what it had been, and Gaara was having a hard time deciding if that was a good or bad thing. On the one hand, he now knew how they really felt about him, and he would rather not have two advisers who he was sure snickered at him behind his back. On the other hand, he relied on them for a _lot_ of things, and even siblings who were only nice to his face were better company than no one at all.

It was a dilemma.

{}{}{}{}{}

Shikamaru and Chouji were overjoyed upon their arrival in Suna.

It meant that for the first time in five days, they would have a chance to get away from Ino, who had not been a very pleasant traveling companion.

After she unintentionally robbed The Gift Shop, one of the sales associates had approached the boys and insisted they pay for the cookie jar before leaving. Shikamaru forked over the money with the assumption that they could just exchange it for something less shitty when they retrieved Ino, but alas- it was a clearance item, and all clearance sales were final.

"You are such a pain," he'd grumbled to her as they left the village. "The Kazekage is going to think we're nuts, giving him something like that."

"Oh, I'm sorry that I got upset when I _saw my boyfriend cheating on me_! Next time, I'll just be Mr. Perfect Shinobi like you, and then maybe in twenty years I'll go crazy from holding all my feelings in and _kill myself_!"

"How did you get from buying someone a crummy birthday present to suicide?" Shikamaru asked. "You're being a drama queen."

"Oh, oh, okay, so now I'm overreacting!"

"Maybe a little."

"Well, I guess I won't tell you how I feel anymore, since I wouldn't want to bother you or anything. If I start crying, carry on with your day, it's probably just Ino being a drama queen again! Don't pay her any mind!"

They had walked in tense silence for a few minutes before Chouji caved.

"Tell us how you feel, Ino."

"THAT SHORT, LYING SACK OF SHIT!"

All conversations had continued in this manner for the whole trip.

The men were looking forward to nothing more than a quiet evening enjoying the Kazekage's hospitality before they got down to the business of hashing out the trade agreement the next day. Shikamaru thought longingly of the guest quarter's soft, extra large beds, and even more longingly of his usual companion in said beds; Chouji was really just hoping for a decent sit-down meal.

It was their bad luck that they arrived less than an hour before Gaara's birthday party.

"Hello!" said the exuberant, bikini-clad woman who answered the door. "You must be the delegates from Konoha! I'm Ine, the new housekeeper- come in!

"You're just in time for the Kazekage's birthday party!" she burbled. "It starts in an hour, and- OH, NO! We forgot to tell you about the theme! …You didn't happen to bring bathing suits, did you?"

The thought of bringing bathing suits along on a diplomatic assignment in the desert had not occurred to any of them. Ine began panicking, but Temari stepped in to handle the crisis.

"Hello, everyone," she greeted them. "It's good to see you all again."

Her eyes lingered on Shikamaru for a beat; it gave him a tingly feeling.

"Hello, Temari," Ino sang.

Her and Shikamaru's budding romance was a personal affront, in Ino's eyes; she just could not understand how a man who spent as much time with someone as glamorous as herself could prefer a badly dressed, makeup-free tomboy who didn't even know how to style her hair properly. Not that she had feelings for Shikamaru, but it would have been nice to be _asked_, at least.

"Oh, Ino, I've been looking forward to seeing you so much."

Temari, for her part, thought that Ino was a silly, stuck-up priss who desperately needed to rethink her priorities in life. She had never met another kunoichi as obsessed with appearances as Ino was, and found her vanity sickening.

They smiled at each other.

"I'm sure that Kankuro can lend you two some shorts or something to swim in," Temari said to Shikamaru and Chouji. "He's in the kitchen, helping to get the taco station ready."

"What about me?" Ino asked. "What can I wear?"

Temari gave her a sickly sweet smile that made her toes curl in apprehension.

"Come with me to my room. I'm sure we can find something for you, Ino-_chan_."

{}{}{}{}{}

Gaara was hiding.

He had pushed a deck chair behind one of the inflatable palm trees surrounding the pool, and was using that at his vantage point to glare at everyone celebrating his birthday.

This pool party business was just plain awful; the whole place stank of chlorine, someone had dropped a taco into the water, which Kankuro was now trying to scoop out with a plastic cup, and whatever Ine was putting in the drinks was entirely too strong, judging by the conga line that was forming.

Not to mention the fact that most of the guests were decades too old to pull off swimsuits. The average age of the council members was about fifty, which made for an impressive display of veiny legs, sunken chests, male bosoms, and disgusting, bony feet. Gaara found other people's feet distasteful.

Chizuko was drifting around, mingling. She'd made a few attempts at having him join her, but he'd retreated to his hiding spot after the slightly inebriated Secretary of Education had offered to show him his third nipple.

This was even worse than his sixth birthday, at which he had been startled by a balloon popping, causing his sand shield to hurl one of his cousins off a balcony.

The conga line was working its way towards him. At its head was Shinto Bachiko, Chizuko's mother; she had been in good spirits ever since they began "dating," and had apparently decided to use the party as an opportunity to cut loose.

"Kazekage-sama!" she cried when she spotted him. "Won't you join us?"

"I don't dance," he said.

"Maa, come humor me! After all, I just may be your mother-in-law someday!"

She winked, and Gaara swore his heart stopped for a moment.

"I… am going to the restroom," he declared, standing up. "Excuse me."

Temari shoved a piece of birthday cake into his hands as he hurried past her, reminding him that there were more presents for him to open when he got back.

He replayed Bachiko's comment in his mind as he headed back to the main house. _'Mother-in-law.'_ He and Chizuko married. Married…

Other people his age had had several romantic partners by this point, and surely some of them were already making plans to settle down permanently. But the thought had never crossed _his_ mind until just now; he wondered why that was.

He sometimes felt as though there was something, some secret or map to humanity, that every person in the whole world knew about except him. Other people seemed to just _know _when it was the time in their life for them to take an interest in the opposite sex, time to focus on their career, time to have children. They just knew how to go about doing these things, too, without anyone sitting them down and explaining how it all worked.

And then there was him, stumbling along three steps behind, never sure what to say or do, the key to being like everyone else forever out of his reach.

Why were these things so much harder for him?

Feeling gloomy and alone, he went into the kitchen to throw away his cake. It was red velvet. Gaara did not like red velvet cake.

Yamanaka Ino was sitting at the kitchen table eating a taco, also looking gloomy and alone.

"Kazekage-sama," she greeted him. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you." He shifted his weight to his other foot, wondering what he should say to her.

"Didn't you like the party?" she asked.

"It… was not my taste," he admitted. "Did you?"

Ino snorted and shook her head. "Everything was perfect, except my outfit."

She pushed her chair back so that he could see it. She wore a stained white T-shirt several sizes too large over baggy men's shorts that were cinched at the waist with a safety pin. The crotch of the shorts was noticeably sagging. She looked ridiculous.

"Isn't that Temari's shirt?" he asked. "She wore it to clean the bathroom, before we replaced our housekeeper."

"UGH!" Ino glared down at it. "She's such a bitch! No offense, Kazekage-sama."

"Um…" The bathroom comment had sounded innocuous in his head. Evidently, he had been mistaken.

"It's just that I've had such a horrible week. This was the last straw." She picked a piece of chicken off her taco and sighed. "I caught my boyfriend with another girl the afternoon we left to come here, you know. Six months we were together, and the second he thinks I left the village, he runs off to buy tacky little hearts for some inbred-looking hose-beast's charm bracelet."

She sighed again. "My life is such a pile of shit."

Personal confessions were not Gaara's area of expertise, so he just looked at her.

"It's alright, though," she continued. "To be honest, the relationship was getting kind of stale. We just didn't have that much to talk about anymore, we'd stopped going out and doing new things together. And the sex! Don't even get me started!"

Gaara's eyes widened in shock. How had the conversation gone from 'happy birthday' to _this_ in under two minutes?

Ino took a thoughtful bite of her taco. "I guess what really upset me was the fact that he was sneaking around, not the actual break-up. I mean, come on," she scoffed, "would _you_ cheat on this?"

Her T-shirt, he noticed, said 'Suna Free Clinic: Now offering STD testing Mondays and Wednesdays!'

"...Er...no?"

She smiled at him. "Thanks. What kind of cake is that, by the way?"

"Uh... red velvet." He set it down on the table, glad to be back on safe ground. "I don't care for it. You can have it, if you wish."

"Oh, I couldn't. I'm on a diet. Well, maybe one bite." She dug in with gusto. "Mmm, that's good. I met your girlfriend, at the bar in there. She's very nice."

"Thank you?" he ventured. How was one supposed to respond to third party compliments like that? He had never been sure.

"Yeah. She said you met through a personal ad. That's a cute story, I think."

"Ah."

"I met my boyfriend- well, ex-boyfriend- while we were waiting in line at a convenience store at two in the morning. He'd just got back from a mission and stopped to get a bottle of water. I was coming back from a night out and I wanted some cheesy pretzels." She took another bite of cake. "That's not such a cute story, is it?"

"It... I suppose..."

"God, he was such a loser! I can't believe I wasted six whole months on him!"

Hadn't she just said that it was alright, and the relationship wasn't going well? Gaara was so lost.

Ino abruptly switched topics once again. "Have you opened the present from us yet? It's not very good, so sorry about that."

"What was it?"

"It's a cookie jar. A panda one." She started laughing and almost choked on the final bite of cake. "Hey, I just realized- the markings on your eyes make you look like a panda, don't they?"

People had openly hated him, run screaming in terror when they saw him coming, and even tried to murder him; _no one_ had ever laughed in Gaara's face before. He wasn't sure what to make of the experience.

"Sorry, Kazekage-sama," she said once she'd managed to swallow her food. "I don't mean to be rude, I just thought it was kind of a funny coincidence. What _are_ those marks around your eyes?"

"What? My... They are left over from Shukaku," he said, raising one hand to his face.

"Well, don't go getting all self-conscious about them now just because I said something. It was only a question." She got up out of her seat. "I think I'm going to get my own piece of cake. Are you coming back to the party?"

He shook his head.

"Alright then. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," he echoed, watching the kitchen door swing closed behind her.

'_You look like a panda.'_ Gaara didn't think he had ever been spoken to like that before.

What an odd girl.

{}{}{}{}{}

"Hey, Kankuro," someone said.

He turned around from where he was kneeling at the edge of the pool to face the Secretary of Education.

"Yes?"

"You'll never guess what's under my shirt," he said with a sly smile.

Kankuro rolled his eyes. "Is it a third nipple? You've been asking everyone to guess that all afternoon."

"Oh." He looked disappointed, then shrugged and shoved Kankuro in.

"Respect your elders!" he ordered as he stalked off to the bar.

Kankuro resurfaced, spluttering. The last bits of taco he'd been trying to collect were floating around him; he began picking scraps of lettuce out of the water.

Baki approached and dangled his feet in the pool.

"Great party," he commented, "but have you seen Gaara? I've been trying to find him to wish him happy birthday since I got here."

"Last I saw, the conga line was trying to assimilate him," said Kankuro. "I doubt he joined it, though. Have you been introduced to Chizuko yet?"

"I was. Nice girl, but she seems… off."

"Doesn't she?" Kankuro agreed. "They're so weird together! When I had my first girlfriend, all I wanted was to spend time with her, especially right after we started dating. We made out all over the place! All I ever see them do is sit around and talk about the weather and shit."

"They could just be shy," said Baki.

"I don't know, maybe. Temari said she thinks it might be some kind of front- apparently there were some rumors going around about Chizuko a few years back."

"Really now? What kind of rumors?"

"I'm not sure," Kankuro shrugged. "You know Temari, she's not one to gossip. Here, take this lettuce for me?"

Baki recoiled. "I'm a guest," he pointed out. "Keep the pool clean yourself."

"Oh, you're a guest! Well, the last time I checked, guests usually don't let themselves in at the asscrack of dawn to help themselves to whatever's in the fridge."

"I'm a guest with benefits," said Baki. "Speaking of which, one of those Konoha-nin is getting handsy with your sister under the food table. I thought I ought to mention it to you."

Kankuro groaned. "She tells me strippers are inappropriate, and yet she lets some dude grope her beneath the tacos? Hypocrite."

"A very classy hypocrite at that. I think it's the cocktails again." Baki saluted with his glass. "These things are pretty wicked."

As if to punctuate his point, they were interrupted by a disturbance at the bar.

"Oh my God!" Ine shrieked gleefully. "There really _are_ three!"


	6. The Fallout

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews and favorites, guys!

Just to make it clear, there is some minor Shikamaru/Temari in this story. I didn't think it would be a big problem that I didn't disclaim it beforehand, since they're one of the only kinda/sorta canon pairings, but I got a PM from someone who was very upset that I hadn't mentioned it in the summary.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Fallout

Everyone agreed the pool party had been a smashing success and that it was an experience that needed to be repeated, although you never would have guessed so by the state of everyone at breakfast the next morning.

"Ohh," Kankuro moaned, sitting down heavily. "Ine! I need to eat something really greasy! Also, Tylenol."

"Alright! I made eggs, and bacon, and those little fried potato things you like, and we didn't have any more sausages, so I-"

"Stop mentioning food," Shikamaru pleaded, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Please no food, only cigarettes."

"Oh, lots of people left cigarettes here last night! Would you like menthol or non-menthol? Shorts or hundreds? Lucky Strikes or-"

"Fewer options," Shikamaru interrupted. "I'd like fewer options and more cigarettes, please."

"Sure thing! It'll be a surprise!" Ine flounced off to the lost and found she had created in one of the kitchen drawers the night before.

The majority of the guests had cleared out by about six, but around two dozen people had lingered on until past three in the morning. It was this crowd that had taken a good party and made it legendary.

The Secretary of Education, who was an absolute wild man when he wasn't working, had gotten riotously drunk and organized a sort of aquatic beer pong that involved everyone trying to throw olives into wine glasses he'd balanced on an inner tube. Needless to say, the pool was now full of olives, but that was hardly the best part of the evening.

That had been when Chouji finally tempted Ino to swim and her too-large shorts had fallen off.

To her credit, she'd taken it in stride, swinging them around over her head like a lasso and flinging them in Temari's face. This sparked a fight that was not quite as foxy as all the men (except Kankuro, who was a bit put off by the sight of his sister, wearing a one-piece, wrestling another woman, wearing only her underwear) had hoped it would be, but was a good show all the same. They had started talking afterwards and made a pinkie promise to be friends from then on, but then remembered that they hated each other and today, were back to sniping.

Other highlights included Ine, who couldn't swim, falling into the pool and nearly drowning three separate times, Chizuko, who to everyone's surprise became quite loud and entertaining as the evening wore on, singing a duet of 'Stayin' Alive' with Kankuro off his 'Hits of the 70s' CD, and the wife of one of the most senior council members shoving a fistful of cake down Baki's pants.

And Gaara had missed _everything_.

He wasn't sorry about that, but he was vexed that he couldn't follow the conversation over breakfast.

"Ineee! Inooo!" Chouji crooned when Ino arrived in the dining room.

Everyone laughed uproariously, in spite of their collective hangover. Gaara didn't get it.

"You had to be there," Kankuro informed him. "So! What time should we get to work on the trade agreement?"

"_I_ will get to work on the trade agreement this afternoon," said Gaara. "How you spend your day is your own business."

"Right, but I was kind of thinking that since Temari is one who knows the most about trading-"

"She will also spend the day as she sees fit," Gaara interrupted, "because she is no longer my adviser, either. We will say no more about it."

Temari, who was fighting off a splitting headache, smiled at him gratefully.

Kankuro was less satisfied. He'd found that being the Kazekage's brother didn't carry the same status as being his adviser; no one would expect his top adviser to fish a sodden taco out of a pool, but if you were only his _brothe_r, well… you had to earn your keep somehow, didn't you?

"Oookay then. Is she at least your sister again? Because I have to be honest, I'm having a hard time figuring out how I'm related to you both if you're not related to each other."

Gaara glared at him. He was trying to embarrass him in front of their visitors, but it wouldn't work.

Ino giggled into her juice.

Well, alright, maybe it would work.

"Fine."

"Hooray, we're a family again! Now I won't have to split my weekends between two different houses!"

Kankuro was in an awfully goofy mood this morning. Temari noted with some displeasure the way he glanced at Ino after making one of his jokes.

Shikamaru grinned. "Margaritas for everyone!"

"Single bills for the lady in red!" croaked Temari, and they all began laughing again.

Gaara looked around the table in confusion. What had _happened_ after he left last night?

{}{}{}{}{}

At around 11 o'clock that morning, disaster struck.

"Enter!"

Kankuro stepped into Gaara's office, looking very serious.

"Hey, man," he said gently. "Look, I'm sorry to bother you, but there's something we need to talk about."

"What is it?" Gaara asked curtly. Kankuro seemed to be in one of his heart-to-heart moods, and he had no desire to discuss their feelings right now. Or ever.

"Well…" Kakuro rocked back on his heels uneasily. "Um… you got a letter."

"A letter from whom?"

"From Chizuko. She must have dropped it off herself, because there's no stamp."

"Why is that something we need to talk about?"

"I… got this feeling that it was bad news. My shinobi sense was tingling!"

Gaara narrowed his eyes. This lie was more poorly planned than brain surgery performed by someone high on crack.

"You read my mail."

"What? I- okay, yeah, I did, but I can explain! I was just trying to find out if you'd gotten laid yet! Wait, that doesn't sound good either, does it?"

Kankuro took a moment to collect his thoughts. "You see, sometimes, when a man, such as yourself, is in a bad mood for a prolonged period of time, it's because he's having what we call a 'dry spell.' And sometimes, when someone, um, 'makes it rain,' he's suddenly his old self again, and he gives his siblings back their jobs, and everyone gets a happy ending."

He grinned. "Ha, 'happy ending.' Get it?"

"No," Gaara snapped. "Give me the letter and go away."

"Okay, right." Kankuro didn't even know why he bothered trying to lighten the mood. Gaara had never gotten a joke before, and he wasn't about to start now.

"Here you go." He handed the envelope to his younger brother. "I know that we've been on rocky terms the past few weeks, but Temari and I are always around, if you want to talk about stuff."

"If you say so," Gaara muttered.

"Yeah. So…" Impulsively, Kankuro reached out and drew him into a hug. "It's going to be okay, man. We're here for you."

Gaara shoved him away. He found physical displays of affection gauche, and he was also never sure of where to put his hands. Naruto told him you could sometimes squeeze the other person's rear end; instinct told him that was not the correct way to hug his brother.

"You're being strange. Go hug Temari."

"I can't. She's "helping Shikamaru find something" in his room."

"Then help them look."

Kankuro made a disgusted face and left Gaara to read Chizuko's letter.

It didn't mention anything about 'getting laid.'

It did say that Chizuko was in love with another woman.

Also that her mother had been talking about Gaara becoming her son-in-law, that she'd realized a sham marriage to a man would ruin her life, and that she'd decided to take her shot at happiness with their ex-maid, with whom she was in the process of running off even as she dropped the letter at his doorstep.

It was all very inspiring, really.

Gaara wasn't quite sure, though, how he felt about this turn of events on a personal level. He guessed that it was good for Chizuko, and that he wouldn't be expected to resume dating immediately after being dumped, so the classified ad was a dead issue.

But… things would be a little bit lonelier now, wouldn't they?

Gaara sighed and leaned back in his chair.

Loneliness was nothing new. He supposed he should be used to it.

{}{}{}{}{}

"Thanks, Ine-chan."

"You're welcome, Mister Chouji!"

Ine had made a six layered cake for the party, and what hadn't been eaten or ended up in Baki's pants was getting stale in the refrigerator, so she'd decided to experiment with recipes for the leftovers.

Chouji had graciously agreed to hang around to be her taste-tester. So far, she had make cake balls dipped in chocolate, cake pudding, and cake and cheese casserole. The last one hadn't turned out so well.

"Your boyfriend is a lucky man," Chouji commented as he sampled a frozen cake popsicle.

"Oh, no, it's me who's lucky," said Ine dreamily. "He's my hero, and the best guy in the whole word."

"It's nice you feel that way about him. Did he mind that you got home so late last night?"

"Not at all! He came home around the same time I did." Ine gave him a wink, as she was wont to do, but he didn't quite know what she meant by it in this instance.

"He was out that late on a Tuesday night? What kind of work does he do?"

"He's a consultant. Sort of." She winked again. Why did she keep _doing_ that?

"Oh, that's cool. I've always wanted to be a teacher, myself. I'm going to apply to be a jounin instructor once I get promoted."

"I thought that your team wanted to be diplomats."

Chouji twirled the popsicle stick between his fingers. "That's more Shikamaru's thing," he said. "It's too much traveling for me."

"What about Miss Ino? She didn't seem very happy to be here, at first."

"Oh, she likes it okay. Ino always works herself out of bad moods eventually- she just tends to blow things out of proportion. And she broke up with her boyfriend right before we came, so that wasn't helping."

Ine sighed and fiddled with her rings fretfully. "She told me last night how she caught him cheating on her. I felt so bad for her."

"Yeah, she doesn't have very good luck with boyfriends."

"Really? But why?"

Chouji took another cake ball off the plate. The thought that he should not be discussing his teammate's love life with a near stranger was floating around in the back of his mind, but Ine was one of those people to whom it felt it natural to say deeply personal things. Even when she was playing housekeeper, the psychological phenomenon that led people to tell bartenders their life stories followed her around.

"Well, she's a great friend, but Ino doesn't act like herself around guys. Especially ones she's dating."

"Oh, my cousin used to do that! She told this guy she was going out with that she loved children because he loved children, but it was a big fat lie. Then when they got married, she found out he had six kids he'd never said anything about. She spent the whole wedding crying in the bathroom. We had to slide her chicken cutlets under the door because she wouldn't come out to eat."

"You have to be honest in relationships," Chouji agreed. "Me and Sakura- that's Ino's best friend- keep telling her that, but I think she's kind of addicted to drama."

"I had another cousin who was addicted to that, too! He robbed a liquor store to pay for it, and then he tried to hide from the police by climbing a telephone pole. Now he's in jail, because telephone poles don't make very good hiding spots. You should tell her to get off that mess, it's bad news."

"Uh…'drama.' She's addicted to drama. I don't think we're talking about the same thing."

"Oh, _drama_! That's not so bad then, is it? I thought you said- well, never mind."

Ine shook her head sadly. "Her teeth are too good for her to be on what I was thinking, anyway. My cousin had to get dentures, and he's only twenty two."

They took a moment to reflect on the tragedy of needing false teeth at the tender age of twenty-two. The world was a cold, hard place sometimes.

"Do you think cake and peanut butter sandwiches would be good? I'm going to make that next."

{}{}{}{}{}

"So was she already a lesbian, or did he turn her into a lesbian?" Shikamaru asked.

"She already was," said Temari. "There was a minor scandal over it a few years ago, but the clan covered it up."

She turned to Kankuro. "How did he take it? Was he upset?"

"I don't know," he said miserably, "he kicked me out of his office before he read it. But if she was coming out to him in a letter, he couldn't have known about it. He must have gotten together with her because he really liked her after all."

He sat down heavily on Shikamaru's bed. "This is all our fault, Temari. We should never have pushed him to get into a relationship."

"These things happen," she said. "He was going to break up with a girlfriend sooner or later. It's not the end of the world."

"But he's like, physically incapable of coping with rejection in a rational way. Remember that time Baki forgot he was supposed to come over for dinner, and Gaara decided he had secretly hated us all along, so he cut him out of all our team pictures?"

"He was fourteen when he did that," Temari reminded him. "He's gotten better since then."

"He's still Coo-Coo Bananas at heart," said Kankuro. "Coo-Coo Bananas forever. Coo-Coo Bananas until the cows come home."

"'Coo-Coo Bananas?'" Shikamaru repeated. "Does he know you call him that?"

"No, and he's not going to find out. Why don't you go ask Ine to start lunch, Kankuro? I'll be down in a minute."

"What about Gaara? We need to figure out something to do with him."

"I know, I know. I've got an idea, but I need a little time."

Kankuro frowned at her. "Is your idea to make out with your boyfriend some more? Because that hasn't been making a huge difference so far, just for your information."

"I don't have a boyfriend," Temari informed him, "and my plan is sheer brilliance, so toddle off and let me take care of things."

What was this, 'Kick Out Kankuro Day?' He pushed himself up off the bed with a woeful sigh that earned him exactly no sympathy from his sister, and left.

"Why are we still pretending we're not together?" Shikamaru asked after the door had closed behind him. "Everyone knows the truth."

"We're not together," Temari insisted. "Not really. Do you tell people back in Konoha I'm your girlfriend?"

"I would, if you hadn't told me not to."

"Right. Well, don't start now."

She flopped backwards into the pillows and Shikamaru propped himself up on one elbow to look down at her.

"Is there someone else?" he asked.

"Well, the Secretary of Education _did_ tell me I could touch his extra nipple last night so I could be sure it was real. So that's like, what, second base?"

"Be serious."

"No. Only you."

"Good." He leaned down to breathe in the scent of her hair. "If you did ever leave me for someone else," he murmured, "I wouldn't be able to function. The Akatsuki could ask me to sign Konoha over to them, and I'd probably do it."

Temari sat back up and tapped him on the nose. "That's why you're not the Hokage then. Now, I've got a Coo-Coo Bananas crisis to handle, so I'll see you after your meeting."

She got up and swept off, leaving Shikamaru alone in his room.

"_Troublesome_," he sighed.

{}{}{}{}{}

"So was she already a lesbian, or did he turn her into a lesbian?"

"She was already a lesbian! You can't just make someone switch teams like that!"

Temari and Ino glared at each other.

"Are you going to help, or not?"

Ino shrugged. "I don't know why you think I can. The Kazekage and I aren't best buddies."

"He isn't buddies with Kankuro and I right now, either. And since his girlfriend ran off on him, and you just got dumped like a ton of bricks for what? The sixth time in two years?"

"Third time, and _I_ dumped _him_!"

"Whatever, you're still the expert on failed romances here. As I was saying, you and Gaara have something in common at the moment."

Ino twirled her hair around her finger, looking suspicious. "This is weird. You're trying to set me up or something. I'm probably going to try to talk to him and find out his girlfriend didn't break up with him at all, and you just wanted to make me look like an idiot."

"No. It's true. Ask Kankuro, he went snooping through his mail."

Temari looked at Ino under her eyelashes. "The thing is, Gaara doesn't have any friends to talk to, okay? And if he's not talking to me and Kankuro, he doesn't have anyone. You're a neutral third party, and you can relate to his situation…" she took a deep breath to steel herself before paying Ino a (backhanded) compliment "…and you never shut up, which I guess makes you 'friendly' or 'outgoing' or whatever you want to call it."

"Hmm." Ino considered it. "I am pretty good at talking to people. Especially shy people. The Hokage told me once I have the gift of gab."

Temari rolled her eyes. "Gaara's not shy, and I said you never shut up, not that you're good at talking. There's a difference."

"You know what? I'm going to do you a favor, and pass some of my personal magnetism on to you. Lesson one: Compliments! Now, say something nice about me, _Temari_."

"I can't. My mother always taught me not to lie."

"Oh, but you can! Say one nice thing about me, and I'll go lend your brother a shoulder to cry on."

"Gaara doesn't _cry_."

"What was that? Did I just hear 'Ino, you have movie-star hair?'"

"Is that really the best compliment you can come up with?" Temari snorted. "Not 'Ino, you're such a nice person,' or 'Ino, you're an amazing kunoichi,' or 'Ino, you're at least a little smarter than a box of rocks?' It's your hair?"

"Oh, three compliments! Someone has a crush on me!" Ino gave her a patronizing smile. "Looks like Chizuko isn't the only girl the Kazekage's turned into a lesbian."

"Turned into a- EW! He's my brother! Don't be disgusting!"

"Oh, Temari, get your mind out of the gutter. I meant it literally: you look like a lesbian."

"And you look like Streetwalker Barbie. How does someone look like a lesbian anyway? That's just stereotyping."

"Well, you're obviously not trying to attract a man with that haircut. It's like someone stuck a wool sweater in the dryer and turned it to the 'extra frizz' cycle."

"And we're back to hair! Besides, I can think of one man I've attracted."

Ino let out a long hiss. "We'll see about that. I'm off to my meeting. And yes," she said before Temari could ask, "I'll try to talk to your brother. Just don't think it's to do you a favor, though."

"Really?" Temari said sarcastically. "Who are you doing the favor for, then?"

"For the Kazekage, of course! I make it my job to spread good vibes and sunshine everywhere I go, didn't you know?"

{}{}{}{}{}

"I think this is a good place to start back up tomorrow," announced Shikamaru, "if that's alright by you, Kazekage-sama."

Gaara nodded and rolled the scroll up. "That will be fine. I will be free to meet with you at the same time tomorrow afternoon."

"Of course." Shikamaru looked at him as though there was something else he wanted to say, but cleared his throat and gestured for Chouji and Ino to follow him out of the office.

"I'll be there in one second," said Ino. "I think I dropped my pen."

She made a show of looking around the floor until her team was gone, and then began to speak.

"I just wanted to let you know," she said to Gaara, "that I'm really sorry about your girlfriend dumping you and becoming a lesbian."

Gaara frowned at her. Was privacy so much to ask for?

"I was thinking that since my boyfriend just left me for someone else- well, not that he actually left me, because _I_ dumped _him_- we're kind of in the same boat, aren't we?"

"...I suppose."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He looked at her blankly. Yamanaka Ino had to be one of the boldest people he'd ever met.

"We could make fun of them," she suggested. "That's what I usually do after a break-up, and it always makes me feel better."

"I have nothing unkind to say about Chizuko. There was someone else for her; that is all."

Ino bit her lip and wound her hair around her finger.

"You know," she said haltingly, "when I said that my ex was a loser and our relationship was stale, I didn't really mean it. He was a nice guy. I liked him a lot."

She gave him a sheepish smile. "I guess it makes you feel… less vulnerable, if people think you're angry, than if they know you're hurt."

Gaara softened. He could identify with the sentiment, if not the example; acting angry when he was really hurt was the story of his life, even now.

"Yes," he agreed. "It does."

"And I guess you'd feel even less vulnerable if you acted like you just didn't care at all."

"Mmm."

They were silent, and Gaara reflected on the distance between two people, how someone could act one way and feel another, how impossible it was, at least for him, to know which was the truth. He thought about how he would explain his frustration with this to Yamanaka Ino, if such things weren't so difficult for him, and he wondered what made them so difficult in the first place.

"I wasn't lying about the sex, though. _Yuck_."

Gaara cringed.


	7. The Encounter

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks a bunch for the reviews and all, guys!

A few things before this chapter- I'm aware that people in the Naruto-verse don't use American money. I don't think most of us are super familiar with the buying power of ryou and yen, though, so I used US dollars to make things easier.

Second, kadomatsu are traditional New Year's floral arrangements (like, great big ones in pots) that sit in pairs outside doorways around the holiday. There's a Wikipedia entry if anyone's interested.

Third, I realized that back when I was writing this story, I forgot about a sub-plot and just kind of left it to dangle in the breeze. I'm fixing it, but updates are going to be much slower due to massive revisions.

Anyway, on to the chapter!

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Encounter

Several diplomatic missions ago, Team 10 had found that once the novelty of looking at camels wore off, Suna was pretty boring. And hot. Except at night, when the temperature dropped to below freezing. Suna actually kind of sucked.

The country's all-around awfulness was compounded by the fact that they were making no progress on the trade agreement.

Temari was usually the one to bang out the details of treaties, and while Gaara was capable of negotiating solo, he was driving a hard bargain in this instance. His siblings knew that this was due to the fact that Suna just couldn't afford the lowered tariffs Konoha was asking for, but to Team 10, he looked, frankly, like a big meanie.

"He hasn't agreed to a single proposal in three meetings," Shikamaru grumbled to Ino and Chouji one afternoon, as they were lazing around in the yard outside the guest quarters. "We've never had this much trouble treating with Temari."

"Yeah, well, the Kazekage isn't your girlfriend, is he?" Ino pointed out.

"That's not fair, Ino," said Chouji. "Temari doesn't cut us a break just because they're... whatever."

"And stop saying she's my girlfriend," Shikamaru ordered sourly, flopping backwards into a lawnchair to watch the clouds. "You're going to get me into trouble."

Chouji and Ino looked at each other. They both knew that Shikamaru and Temari's it's-not-a-relationship was understated, but trying to keep it a complete secret at this point was a little insane.

"Shikamaru," Ino started, "don't you think it's strange that you're still pretending you're not together?"

"Yes," he said in a flat tone. "But that's what she wants, so that's what she'll get."

"Is that what you want?" Chouji asked.

Shikamaru kept his gaze trained on the sky. "Look- that one's a music note."

Ino, who was not about to be side-tracked by an interesting cloud, pressed the issue further. "If you want this to be a long-term thing, you have to stop this secret lovers bullshit. It's got to be unhealthy."

"She's right," Chouji agreed. "Sometimes men are ashamed of their feelings, but you have to be honest about them. You should talk to Temari about what you want out of the relationship."

Shikamaru scowled at him. "I can't believe we're having this conversation. What are you, the love doctor?"

"No, but that's what Dr. Kenshin always says on _his_ show."

"Oh my God," Ino groaned. "Not this again."

'The Dr. Kenshin Hour' was a popular talk show among the housewives and shut-ins of Konoha. The host dispensed advice on topics ranging from parenting to weight loss, and specialized in helping people with outrageous problems like addictions to popping bubble wrap and pathological fears of cheeseburgers.

Chouji had discovered him during a long stay in Konoha Hospital after a mission in Kiri had gone awry, and become hooked.

"He gives good advice! He says that communication is the heart of a relationship and love is the brain. See, most people would probably have it the other way around, but he says that the heart supplies the whole body with blood, just like communication supplies the whole relationship with trust and closeness. Shikamaru and Temari's communication is being blocked by the cholesterol of pride."

"Chouji, he's not even a real doctor."

"That doesn't make him wrong. You guys need to eat less of the fried chicken of negativity. It's just full of pride cholesterol, you know."

Temari herself was unavailable to weigh in on this subject, as she had turned her full attention to organizing New Year's.

Both she and Ine had spent the first few days after Gaara's birthday basking in their success, but once the phone began ringing about their next party, they'd realized that everyone was expecting them to top themselves. Also, that the plans they'd made so far were catastrophically lame in comparison.

It was time to get serious about having fun.

While Temari and Ine were off looking for someone who made ice sculptures and debating the advisability of giving their guests sparklers to flail about with, Kankuro had been devising a plan to work his way back into Gaara's good graces.

Following his suggestion of using plastic plates and cups for easier clean-up, Temari had informed him that he was dismissed from the New Year's party planning committee. This made life much more boring. Kankuro did not tolerate boredom well. So far, he'd offered to teach Gaara about puppets so that they could spend more time together, surprised him with green tea ice cream that was melted by the time he'd gotten it home, and offered to work for free, all to no avail.

He even decided to just go into his old office one day and act like he'd never been fired, more to see what would happen than anything else, but someone called security.

"What do you mean, leave? I'm the Kazekage's adviser!"

Security, which was really just Baki, was not amused.

"Come on. I have actual work to do."

"So do I. Why don't we each do our own work, in our own offices, and not disturb each other?"

"If I have to drag you out of here, it's only going embarrass both of us."

"Fine!" Kankuro stood up. "Somebody took my rolly chair anyway, so I don't even want to be here!"

"Great. Go home."

"I'm going!"

"Door's right there."

"I see it!"

"Anytime you're ready."

"I was BORN ready!"

They stared at each other, Kankuro defiant, Baki puzzled.

"Alright, are you goofing around, or is this a cry for help? I'm starting to get worried."

Kankuro blinked, then sank back to his seat and buried his head in his arms. "I don't know," he admitted, sounding defeated. "It's just that... I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore, you know? I used to spend all day, every day, working on all this important stuff, and now I just sit around the house in sweat pants, eating cereal and watching _Guiding Light_ reruns."

"So ask the Kazekage for a mission," Baki suggested. "You are still a shinobi."

"I can't go anywhere!" Kankuro snapped his head up off his desk with a frown. "What if Temari and Gaara need me?"

"Need you to do what, exactly? Fill them in on what's going on on _Guiding Light_?"

"Shut up. They might need me to do brother stuff. Give advice, listen to their problems, take them out for ice cream when things get rough. You know."

Baki did his level best not to roll his eyes. "When have you ever taken either of them to get ice cream?"

"Never, yet," Kankuro said, "but they both have stuff going on right now. I'm a good brother, and good families have to stick together, so I need to stay right here in Suna."

He gave Baki a tremulous smile that seemed to be seeking confirmation of these facts. Baki knew he ought to tell him to quit being a sadsack, but he'd never liked kicking a man while he was down.

"You're right," he agreed, then hesitated. "Maybe instead of cereal and TV today, though, you could go to the training grounds for a while? Exercise is good for taking your mind off of things."

"Tomorrow," Kankuro said briskly as he got back up, apparently re-energized by the affirmation that he did serve a purpose. "I think today they might finally say who the father of Rita's baby is."

He fixed Baki with a grave look. "If it's Greg, I'm so done with that show. He's a total dick."

{}{}{}{}{}

On Team 10's eighth day in Suna, Gaara came downstairs for breakfast to find the house all but abandoned.

"Where is everyone?" he asked Ine as she made him his daily tamago gohan.

"They went out to eat at Two Dollar Waffles," she said, subdued. "It was Miss Temari's idea."

She cast him a baleful look from the stove. "_I_ know how to make waffles, too."

It would have been a lie to say that he was disappointed about dining alone. Having extra people invade his living space was stressful, even if they were technically in a different building. Every time he went to use the bathroom, he felt compelled to check behind the shower curtain to make sure no one was going to pop out at him. It was a specific and irrational fear, but you could never be too careful with strangers about.

"Aren't you going to eat in the dining room?" Ine asked when he sat at the kitchen table.

"No. Why would I?"

"Because Miss Ino is there, Kazekage-sama. She said she didn't want waffles because she's on a diet."

His stomach clenched. "Oh."

Almost in spite of himself, Gaara rather liked Ino. He would have preferred, however, to like her from a safe distance, because he was never sure what to expect with her.

For example, he'd walked into the kitchen the other day to find her helping Temari and Ine revise the menu for New Year's. They were having some kerfuffle over asparagus, which he'd been happy to ignore until Ino asked him if he'd ever noticed an unusual smell to his urine after eating it. She thought the noxious side effects made it a very rude vegetable. Temari thought that its taste and nutritional value made up for any funny smells.

Ine preferred not to get involved. Gaara had decided that she was smarter than he'd given her credit for.

But, duty called, and he would play the attentive host this morning. Ine handed him his tamago and he strode off to the dining room, promising himself that this time, no matter what Ino threw at him, he would not stare at her in stunned silence like he had when she asked if he wore a whole outfit or just his underwear beneath his kage robes. (Not that it was anyone's business, but it varied according to the weather.)

He found her sitting towards one end of the banquet table, flipping through a fashion magazine and munching on a piece of toast. The dining room was a great, majestic place, with vaulted ceilings that made an echo at the slightest sound; this always made him feel oddly self-conscious, but Ino seemed unperturbed by the noise she was making as she rustled the paper.

"Good morning."

"Morning, Kazekage-sama," she said, putting down her magazine. "You don't look very well rested. You've got big dark circles under your eyes."

One thing he had learned about Ino was that she was very direct. Even when she said things that weren't tactful, or helpful, or even polite, she said them with great confidence and candor. It was a trait he admired, though he did wish she would occasionally censor some of her more personal comments.

Gaara took a seat at the head of the table. "I worked late."

"You should get more sleep," she lectured. "A good night's sleep is the keystone of good health, you know."

She gave him a conspiratorial smile and leaned in a little. "Tsunade-sama always says it's good nutrition," she confided, "but I changed it. I think mine's better, don't you? I know people who live just fine off of, like, microwave pizza, but there's no substitute for sleep."

"That is true," he agreed, taking a bite of rice.

"Yeah. I've noticed that a lot of important shinobis don't take care of themselves very well. I guess they think they're too busy, but who's asking them to be on the job every second of the day? No one, that's who." She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "Don't you agree?"

"Of course," he assured her.

"Good. So anyway, Ine was telling me earlier this morning that they just put up the New Year's decorations downtown."

She took a bite of toast and looked at him expectantly.

"Oh, yes?"

"Yep. She saw them on her way in to work. She said they're really nice- they've got lanterns that look like disco balls on some streets."

"How elegant."

"Isn't it? I just love stuff like that. I was thinking that we should go down to check it out, after we eat."

Gaara paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. "What?"

"We should go see how everything looks after we eat," she repeated, taking a sip of her juice. "Everyone else went to get waffles. We should go on an adventure, too."

He shifted in his seat. "I would like to," he lied, "but I have so many things to do. Perhaps Kankuro or Temari could accompany you when they return."

"Oh, but Kazekage-sama!" she said, waggling a finger at him. "Didn't we just agree that important people need to make time for themselves? I'm sure you could use a break- you've done nothing but work for the whole week we've been here. You even left your birthday party early. I think you need to relax for a little while."

While it was true that Gaara had had even less private time than usual since he released Temari and Kankuro into the wild, he hadn't enjoyed going out and doing things in the first place. And going out and doing things with Ino, he was certain, would not be in the least bit relaxing.

"Perhaps another time," he said. "I have some pressing matters to attend to. I apologize."

Ino's shoulders slumped. "Oh, it's fine, Kazekage-sama," she sighed. "I'm not very good company these days, anyway, am I?"

The hair on the back of Gaara's neck stood up. Something was amiss here. "I wouldn't say that."

She made a soft noise in the back of her throat. "You're very kind," she said, "but you can be honest. No one wants to hang out with someone who's being all moody and depressing- not even my teammates."

"I… ah…"

"No, no, don't pity me," she ordered, turning away and wiping at one eye with a trembling hand. "I know that I'm no fun lately. It's just been so hard to stay positive, since… since Tokuma…"

She sniffed, officially making this breakfast even more awkward than being asked what his pee smelled like.

Gaara glared down at his food. If she was going to cry, what choice did he have but to take her to look at disco ball lanterns? His heart wasn't made of stone.

"I suppose my paperwork can wait an hour," he told her. "I would be glad to take a walk downtown with you."

Ino turned around to face him again, looking decidedly non- tearful. "Great!" she said. "I thought we could walk down the main street for a bit, and then go see what's going on around the hospital. I promised Chouji I would stop in at this little bakery right near it to get him some jelly buns, too, so I can kill two birds with one stone that way."

She beamed at him.

Gaara gave her a strained smile in return.

He could appreciate a well-set trap on an academic level, but fake crying was just _low_.

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Two Dollar Waffles (Now Serving Pancakes!) was something of a landmark in Suna.

It was the oldest restaurant in the village that was still in business, the first restaurant in any of the villages to serve Western food, and the jumping off point of the brief, but infamous, Pickle Barrel Riot of 1912. The owner at the time had held a contest wherein whoever could guess how many pickles were in the barrel would take all of them home as a prize. There turned out to be four pickles and a bunch of rocks. People got upset. Things got out of hand. The library got burned down.

But this was a new age, and Two Dollar Waffles had long since given up their pickle-related chicanery. In recent years, they had also given up making decent food, and by the looks of the men's room, cleaning things. Also, the waffles were actually $2.30 including tax.

"So this is a historical site?" Chouji asked, looking around dubiously at the mostly-empty dining area.

"Yeah," said Temari. She took a sip of her coffee, which tasted like it might have also been yesterday's coffee. "It's nothing fancy, but it's just about mandatory for out-of-towners to stop in and see it."

"Huh."

Some old crooner song played softly in the background, rendered unidentifiable by the ancient, staticky stereo system. They could hear one of the cooks cursing out a busboy in the kitchen loud and clear, however.

"Well, thanks for taking us here," said Chouji, doing his cheerful Chouji best to look on the bright side of things. "It's nice to get out of the house for a while, right, Shikamaru?"

He elbowed him. "Yes," Shikamaru muttered. "Thanks for taking us. All _four_ of us."

Temari glowered at him. What, just because they had a thing going she wasn't allowed to spend time with anyone else? Well, she rejected his patriarchal notions of ownership. She was a grown woman, and she would sit in a filthy diner eating sub-standard breakfast food with whomever she pleased.

Kankuro, oblivious to the mini-drama playing out next to him, was deeply intrigued by the splattered God-knows-what on the divider between their booth and the one next to it. "How hard would it be to wipe that off?" he wondered aloud. "Why is this place so gross?"

"Stop looking at it," said Temari. "Have a breadstick."

She pushed the basket towards him. Kankuro frowned at it, looking troubled.

"That's another thing! It's nine in the morning. Why did they give us breadsticks?"

He looked around the table for an answer, but some questions in life have none.

"How are your New Year's plans coming along, Temari?" Chouji asked. "Ino told me she's making the designs for the centerpieces."

"Oh, yes," Temari said with a hint of annoyance. "Dear Ino has been such a help. It's a shame that she won't actually be here for the party. Her dedication to it is simply amazing."

"If the Kazekage doesn't start compromising with us soon, we might still be here by then," Shikamaru said, scratching something green off of his fork.

"Want a napkin for that?" Chouji asked him. "I can go find the waitress for you."

Two Dollar Waffles only dispensed napkins upon request, according to the notice glued to the front of the menus. Eating like a civilized person who knew how not to spill syrup all over yourself was strongly encouraged there.

Kankuro watched Shikamaru clean his utensils mournfully. "This was such a good place when we were kids," he said. "Remember, Temari? We always used to want to come here."

"Things change," she shrugged. "It's too bad it's ended up like this, but it had a good run."

Kankuro's brow creased. "You're talking like it's about to close down."

"Well, Kankuro, come on," she laughed. "It's a total dump, and I don't think they're doing much business. Just look around you."

She made a sweeping gesture across the room. Kankuro scrutinized the place, taking in the sun-faded photographs of happier days on the walls, the worn vinyl benches, the hardened boogers on the divider.

"Maybe if their customers started coming back, they could afford to fix it up some," he said.

Temari snorted into her coffee. "Okay. I wish them luck with that."

Kankuro picked up his spoon and began tapping it on the table. "This was an institution in Suna for years! If it was great once, it can be great again."

He looked to Chouji and Shikamaru for support, but was met with identical expressions of polite skepticism.

"You know what?" he said hotly. "Fuck you guys, all three of you! Two Dollar Waffles has a long and storied tradition of serving quality foreign cuisine at reasonable prices, and you're all a bunch of assholes for giving up on them so fast!"

"We've never been here before," Shikamaru pointed out, indicating Chouji and himself.

"Doesn't matter! Who cares if everything isn't perfect? You can't just turn your back on someone who loves you! They're doing the best they can to make everybody happy, and no one even appreciates the effort!"

"Uh... are we still talking about the restaurant?" Temari asked.

"Yes! We... um." Kankuro paused, seeming embarrassed. He delicately placed his spoon back down. "So, uh, in conclusion, be nice to Two Dollar Waffles." He drummed his fingers on the table again. "I'm going to the bathroom now."

He got up and marched away stiffly, as though restraining himself from breaking into a run. The other three watched until he disappeared around a corner.

"What just happened?" Chouji asked in concern.

Temari took another sip of her coffee. "Well, Kankuro needs a hug or maybe a therapist, and we all have to pretend our food is good now so his feelings won't be hurt. That's about the whole of it."

"I don't even like waffles," grumbled Shikamaru.

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Although Gaara liked to take a minimalist approach to decorating, he had to admit that the downtown area was not as ostentatious as he'd feared it would be.

Gold and red lanterns hung like over-ripe apples from the power lines, with alternate rows of lights and colorful paper ornaments strung between them, transecting the street. Many of the businesses had rolled brightly colored banners out of their windows, some brandishing advertisements, some pictures, some kanji for words like 'peace' and 'happiness.' It was quite tasteful, at least in comparison to some other years' displays.

Ino was highly disappointed that they had yet to come across a single disco ball, but was making up for it by rating the various kadomatsu arrangements they passed.

"See those ones?" She pointed across the street to a pharmacy. "The bamboo shoot on the far left needs to be a teensy bit shorter. I would have said they're a nine, but now they get a seven and a half."

"They lose a point and a half over one bamboo shoot?" he asked.

"It's not so much the bamboo shoot itself," Ino explained. "Any florist who looked at it for two minutes before they sent it off would have noticed it wasn't balanced right. When people don't pay attention to details it tells me they just don't care, and if they don't care about their work, why should I?"

"Hm." Gaara wondered if that was her reasoning for paying such meticulous attention to the details of her own appearance.

"Now, see those ones up ahead?" She nodded towards the plants outside the law offices of Ishida and Inoue, Esq.

"Those have the opposite problem- they're waaay too fussy. It's important to let arrangements look natural, not like…"

Gaara never found out what flower arrangements should not look like, because his attention had been diverted away from Ino and the kadomatsu, and onto Tora Kagome.

She had just stepped outside the office building, and was standing right in front of the entrance, rifling through her purse. The memory of her weeping hysterically in the street flashed through Gaara's mind, closely followed by the thought that the tailored dress she was wearing looked like the kind with a zip in the back, and would therefore be difficult to slip out of. Then he started to remember what her breasts had looked like, but he pushed that thought away because this was an emergency.

"We need to leave," he told Ino.

She paused mid-floristry lesson and looked at him curiously.

"Why? We were going to walk by the hospital, weren't we? It's this way."

Kagome seemed to have found whatever she was looking for in her purse. As she straightened up, Gaara turned on his heel and grasped Ino by the arm.

"I will explain, but we must go _now_," he insisted.

Her eyes darted from him to Kagome and back before she too turned, and allowed him to lead her away.

"Are we running away from that girl?" she whispered loudly as they hurried down the street. "Who is she?"

"Someone I don't want to speak with."

"I caught that part, Kazekage-sama. Is she another ex-girlfriend?"

Gaara glanced over his shoulder and guided Ino into the municipal courthouse's portico. "No," he said emphatically. "We went on one date and it did not go well. Running into her would have been uncomfortable for both of us."

Ino was leaning around a column to better see where Kagome was going. "She's pretty," she observed. "What happened on your date? You didn't make her split the bill, did you?"

"No." Gaara scowled at his shoes. "She… was on medication at the time."

Ino tilted her head towards him. "Usually people act _better_ when they're taking their medication," she commented. "What did she do?"

"I don't wish to discuss it," he said coolly. "Do you want to take an alternate route to the hospital or return to Kazekage Tower?"

"What I really want is to know what happened on this date," she said. "You've got me curious now.

"Come on," she wheedled when he looked away. "Just tell me and I'll drop it. I'll keep it a secret, I promise."

Gaara sighed. Half dragging a visiting diplomat down the street without a full explanation was bad form, he guessed. And from what he'd seen of Ino, she was not the type of person to give up easily.

"Fair enough," he relented. "She responded to the same personal ad that Chizuko did. We met at a café near here one afternoon…"

Ino's eyes widened when he got the part about how she had propositioned Shukaku, and she was grimacing like she was trying to suppress a smile by the time Kagome started taking off her clothes. When he mentioned the school children, she lost it.

"Oh my _God_," she choked out between sobs of laughter, "_kids_! And _naked_! Eight-year-olds saw her tits!"

Doubling over, she leaned against the column behind her before her knees gave out.

"That was probably the best day at school ever!"

Gaara looked on in aggravation as tears, real ones this time, trailed down her cheeks.

"I fail to see the humor in this, Yamanaka-san," he said frostily.

"What?" she squawked. "It's hilarious!"

"I disagree."

"But it is, though!"

"No. It was not."

"She went totally crazy in public! If that's not funny, I don't know what is!"

"Knock-knock jokes."

She gaped at him for a moment, then burst out laughing all over again. Gaara crossed his arms and shifted his weight around awkwardly. That had been a dumb thing to say, he'd give her that. But what was so amusing about this to start with? His date with Kagome had been hideously embarrassing, not humorous.

…Right?

Ino was trying to regain her composure. She began to take a deep, slow breath to calm herself, but halfway through it turned into a snort that sent her into a fresh wave of hysterics.

He didn't think he'd ever made anyone laugh this hard before. It was strange, he reflected as he watched her wipe her eyes, that the same incident could be so terrible in his mind, and so pants-wettingly funny in hers.

It occurred to Gaara that it was possible he took things a bit too seriously, at times.

Ino succeeded in taking long, shaky breath. "Okay," she said, "sorry about that, Kazekage-sama. But… knock-knock jokes?"

"Yes," he said. "I liked the one about the cow that interrupts people, when I was young."

She smiled. "My dad loves that joke. He tells it to our customers in the flower shop all the time- he thinks he's a comedian. He also likes the one about why the cookie went to the doctor."

"Why did it?"

"Because it was feeling crumby."

Gaara's lip quirked upwards.

"Anyway." Ino pushed herself away from the column and smoothed out her hair. "I need to go to that bakery for Chouji. Do you have time to come with me?"

There were a million things waiting for him on his desk.

"I could spare another half an hour, I suppose."

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Author's Note- Super long chapter, I know. The next one is going to be all about Ino, since I haven't shown things from her perspective much yet.

Also- did you know that _Guiding Light_ is the longest-running TV drama in history? It was a radio show from 1937 to 1956, and it was on television from 1952 to 2009. That's _72 years_ of extramarital affairs and people going into comas. Incredible.


	8. The Heist

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews, follows, and favorites, guys!

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Heist

Although the days of pining after boys who didn't like her were long gone, Ino had found herself relapsing a few times since arriving in Suna, because there wasn't much else to do.

The village came up a little short in the cultural department; as far as public attractions went, they had the History Museum, the Geology Museum, and the Botanical Society, all of which she had visited on previous trips, and none of which she had been particularly impressed by. The nightlife was equally disappointing. She couldn't say where all the shinobis her age went on weekends, but she knew it wasn't to any of the bars she'd stopped in.

The end result of her boredom was sitting around thinking about Tokuma, trying to figure out where things had gone awry, and joining in on more _Guiding Light_ marathons with Kankuro than she'd like to admit to.

Ino refused to buy into that old chestnut about 'driving him into the arms of another woman,' but in retrospect, she might have sort of persuaded him into the arms of another woman. That didn't excuse him for what he did, but she now realized that she'd been doing that thing Chouji and Sakura kept warning her about.

"It's like you're playing a character," Sakura said over the phone when she called Konoha. "You pretend to be this ultra-glamorous, ultra-cool party girl, and that's just not you."

Ino bristled at being given romantic advice by the woman who'd been too afraid to ask her first boyfriend if he was, in fact, her boyfriend, but stayed on the line anyway.

"I like to look good," she argued, "and I love going to parties and stuff. That _is_ really me."

Sakura made a frustrated noise on the other end. Ino was sure she was making faces at her, long distance.

"Okay, yeah, that's one part of who you are, but you exaggerate it. You just act so… I don't know. Sometimes you intimidate the guys you're with, I think. Maybe."

"You are so helpful," Ino said sincerely. "I'm really glad I called you and we had this conversation. I see things in a whole new light now."

"I'm trying, alright? You can cut the attitude." Sakura paused. "You act like you don't care about anything but having fun. There. Better?"

"What's wrong with fun?" demanded Ino. "I'm not like you and Captain Fabulous. I don't want to spend every Friday night watching movies and having family dinners like an old married couple."

Captain Fabulous was what she called Sakura's boyfriend, but only ironically. Ino saw nothing at all fabulous about him. He was boring and weird, and she was pretty sure he had called the cops on a party at Tenten's apartment one night. Captain Fabulous was a real piece of work.

Sakura huffed. "Alright, if I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, the problem is that whenever you're around guys you're interested in, you act shallow. And don't get mad, because I'm not calling you shallow-"

"Oh, okay, that changes everything!" Ino interjected furiously. "Say whatever you want about me, it's fine as long you don't mean it!"

"This is another thing!" Sakura said, sounding exasperated. "You twist people's words around to start arguments! No one wants to date a drama queen, Ino!"

She gasped. "So now having my feelings hurt makes me a drama queen?!"

"You're still doing it," sighed Sakura. "You know exactly what I meant. Just knock it off."

In truth, she was right. Admitting so and ending the call in a civil way would have been anti-climactic at that point, though, so Ino slammed the phone down onto the receiver. She thought she might lose her mind if she gave up her histrionics, anyway. There was something cathartic about wild overreactions to imaginary insults when she was in a bad mood.

She did call Sakura back about an hour later to smooth things over, and to chat about a dress she was thinking about buying if only she could find some shoes to match it, but their occasional conversations did little to distract her from her romantic woes. The best thing she'd found to occupy her time, aside from the stalled trade negotiations, was helping out with the preparations for New Year's. She'd pestered Temari into following her recommendations for the flowers, and when Ine suggested a Chinese Zodiac theme, she immediately cast her vote in favor of the idea.

"That would be so cute! You guys should do foreign country themes for all your parties from now on. First was Mexico, now China."

"The Kazekage's birthday wasn't a Mexican theme," Temari said with a frown. "It was a tropical theme."

"Why did you have tacos, then? They're Mexican food."

"Because tacos are delicious," Ine chimed in.

Temari shot her a you're-not-helping look. "We also had palm tree decorations and tropical-looking plants. Those aren't Mexican."

"Actually," Ino said in her snottiest voice, "birds-of-paradise are from South Africa, which is a temperate climate, and the kind of mandevillas you had are also from a temperate climate. In _Mexico_."

Temari rolled her eyes. "Okay, Ino, thanks for letting us know," she said, sounding distinctly ungrateful. "I couldn't sleep at night for worrying about whether that party we had over a week ago was more of a tropical theme, or a temperate theme. I'll be able to rest much easier now."

"No problem! I live to serve!"

Antagonizing Temari was another good way to pass the time, but in spite of Ino's distaste for her, she couldn't deny that she made Shikamaru happy.

Ino wanted both her teammates to find something and someone that made them happy, because she'd begun to fear that they would not be a team for much longer. Shikamaru was set on becoming a diplomat, Chouji kept talking about becoming a teacher, and, in a surprise twist, Ino herself had recently taken a job in Konoha's prison.

It started as a temporary assignment that no one at the hospital had wanted. Ino only took it because she'd been the last person in the room to notice everyone else putting their fingers to their noses, but it turned out to be a pretty sweet deal. The prison was allowed to borrow just one medic at a time, meaning that she was her own boss, and both her co-workers and her patients had grown quite fond of her. The inmates may have been looking at trips to the infirmary as a chance to get out of their cells and stretch their legs, but she preferred to think that they wanted to bask in the warm, tender sunlight that shone whither she went. It was very flattering that way. She felt beloved.

Sooner or later, she was going to ask Tsunade-sama to appoint her there on a permanent basis, but that could wait a little longer. After all, what would the boys do without her? They needed her gentle guidance and feminine perspective. She _was_ willing to outsource these duties to someone else, but not without a thorough vetting process first. Handing them over to women who might just put them in a cardboard box and abandon them under a bridge would not do.

So, yes, she wished Shikamaru and Temari all the best. She was so dedicated to his future happiness, in fact, that she even agreed to accompany the two of them to the zoo one Friday afternoon.

Shikamaru had begged her to come the night before, explaining that Temari didn't want it to look like they were on a date, and that Chouji had a prior engagement at Suna's Ninja Academy.

The Secretary of Education had approached him about giving a presentation on Konoha to the graduating class. It had something to do with a new focus on diplomacy and foreign relations; the important thing was that Chouji had accepted, and was unavailable to play wingman.

"She hates the idea of people thinking you're together so much that she wants _me_ along on you guys' date?" Ino had asked when Shikamaru came knocking on her bedroom door. "That's kind of pathetic."

"Thanks," he'd groused. "You always know how to make me feel better."

"It's a gift. Don't worry, though, I'm willing to overlook how weird this is for one afternoon. Just promise that you guys won't sneak off and leave me standing alone at the monkey house or anything."

"I wouldn't do that."

They hadn't snuck off and left her alone at the monkey house. They'd snuck off and left her alone at the ostrich pen. She couldn't say she was surprised, but she did wonder how she was making the outing look less date-like if she was here, and they were off kissing in the dark of the reptile room.

Life at the ostrich pen wasn't very exciting. It was boiling hot outside, and the ostrich had decided to sit in the shade instead of running around, or sticking its head in the sand, or juggling, or doing whatever ostriches did when they felt like putting on a show.

Ino thought it had the right idea. Her big complaint of the day was that she was developing a sunburn hanging around out of doors in the desert heat, and she'd neglected to bring sun block.

Well, you live and you learn.

Deciding that the ostrich was a dud, she wandered away from its exhibit to go find something more interesting. The Wind Country Zoo was only a small place, about twenty miles outside of Suna, that boasted few attractions. Temari had mentioned that a baby elephant had been born there several months earlier, however, and Ino had noticed a few night-blooming cereus plants around the walkways.

Night-blooming cerei were exceedingly rare. Although they were the national flower of Wind Country, they had become endangered in the last few decades, and were almost unheard of outside of the desert. Ino had only ever seen one in person when she visited Suna's Botanical Society, but that had been a bit of a letdown because the plants only bloomed once a year, at night. They looked gorgeous in pictures. They also smelled incredible, or so she had heard.

She wanted one. _Badly_. There were signs dotting the grass that warned damaging or plucking them carried a hefty fine, but what were ninja skills for, if not hijacking shrubbery? Once she met back up with Shikamaru and Temari she'd coerce them into helping her snag one, but right now it was time to coo over the baby elephant.

She was pleased to report that they were much more active than the ostrich. The adults were doing that thing where they sprayed water over themselves, to the delight of the crowd around the enclosure, and the little one was rolling in the mud.

It wasn't just cute. It was cuuuute!1!heartsandsmileyfaces!

Ino drifted over to the 'DID YOU KNOW' poster on the fence, because she was one of those people with a compulsion to read every placard, notice, or sign she came across. These were Asian elephants, she learned, purchased from a circus in Thailand six years ago. The adults knew how to do tricks, but they only understood commands in Thai. The baby had been born four months ago, and his name was… Gaara.

She stood on her toes to see into the pen better. There wasn't much of a resemblance.

Did he know about this? If he didn't, he was going to find out as soon as they got back to Suna. This was far, far too hilarious not to tease him about, or at least, not to try to tease him about. The Kazekage didn't have much of a sense of humor, she'd noticed. He seemed to take even her joke about what he wore under his robes seriously, and that joke had been comedic gold.

He was a real oddball. And a little creepy at times, though Ino assumed that was unintentional on his part. Lucky for him, she'd always liked odd things- that was half the reason she had come to be friends with Sakura, who even at age six, had already been the biggest nerd in Konoha. Couldn't put a bow in her hair the right way, trying to convince their classmates that math was fun… _honestly_. That girl.

But anyway, the Kazekage. She did like him, and she felt a sort of kinship with him, too. Not only because they'd both been dumped recently- she was willing to admit to herself, if not to anyone else, that she'd only beaten Tokuma to the punch by about a minute- but because another thing she'd always liked was projects. Particularly projects of the human kind.

This mission was the first time they had exchanged more than 'hello' while not working, but there was something different about him, she could tell. He was more withdrawn, more tired-looking, more irritable with his siblings than she remembered.

It was obvious that Chizuko had broken his poor little oddball heart, and Ino knew that she was just the right person to play therapist. Who could resist her natural charm and cheer? Not to mention her sensitivity. Ino had _bucket loads_ of sensitivity. She worried at first that all her pep might have been overwhelming him, based on the dazed looks he kept giving her, but when he'd cracked a half-hearted smile at her father's godawful cookie joke the other day, she knew she was getting through to him.

Helping others was the best way to help yourself, and Ino could really use the distraction of an emotionally traumatized Kage in need of rehabilitation at the moment. She was just going to keep shoving her good vibes and sunshine down his throat until he puked up rainbows.

…Maybe not literally.

Ew.

{}{}{}{}{}

Temari heard the sound of a polite cough behind her, and felt someone tap her shoulder. Reluctantly, she pulled away from Shikamaru to face the interloper.

"Yes?"

"Zoo security, ma'am." The man flashed a paper badge with a leopard on it, which she found amusing because the zoo didn't even have leopards. "We're going to have to ask you to exit the reptile room."

"Why is that?"

He coughed again. "This is a family establishment."

Temari cocked an eyebrow. "We're not doing anything worse than your geckos over there."

She pointed to their tank. The geckos were, indeed, unsuitable for younger audiences.

"If we get kicked out, do they get thrown in zoo prison? Because that's just indecent."

"Oh, God," Shikamaru muttered under his breath. "Come on, Temari, let's go."

He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her through the dark, misty enclosure, around the crocodile habitat, and outside, where they both stood blinking in the sunlight.

"What was that?" she demanded, sitting down on a nearby bench. "We weren't doing anything wrong. There was no reason for us to run out of there."

Shikamaru leaned against a tree and pulled his cigarettes from his pocket. "Security asked us to leave. That's a reason."

"Right. We don't want any trouble with zoo security, now, do we?" Temari began tracing a pattern in the dust with the toe of her sandal.

"I don't want trouble with anyone."

"Aw," she said, shooting him a grin, "don't worry. I'll be right there to protect you."

He took a deep drag off his cigarette. "You'll be the first one beating me up."

"Shut up," she said contentedly.

They sat (or stood) in companionable silence for a few minutes, while Temari worked on her sand drawing and Shikamaru smoked. It was hot out there in the sticks. Even hotter than it was in Suna, and with no breeze to stir the stale heat. Shikamaru wasn't about to complain, though. He'd agree to a day trip to the sun if it meant uninterrupted time with Temari.

She completed her artwork and looked down at it in satisfaction. "Here- come see what a lovely picture I made for you."

Shikamaru craned his neck. 'T+S' it read, surrounded by a heart. He looked at her in surprise.

"That's awfully girly, for you."

"Yeah, well. Even I like to get in touch with my feminine side once in a blue moon." She stood up and stretched. "Come on. Let's go to the gift shop so you can buy me something to drink."

Shikamaru flicked his cigarette away and they set off down the dirt path, not holding hands, but brushing shoulders.

In the gift shop, they found Ino spinning around a rack of post cards, the back of her arms and neck roughly the same color as raw beef.

"Oh, look," Temari announced cheerfully. "Roast pork!"

Ino turned to face them. Her front was as burnt as her back, and she wore a pair of sunglasses with pink rhinestone flamingos at the edge of each lens.

"Hur hur hur, you're such a wit," she simpered. Then, inclining her head towards Shikamaru and pointing at the glasses,"I'm getting these for Hinata. What do you think?"

"I've never seen Hinata wear sunglasses," he told her.

"She'll wear these." Ino admired her reflection in a mirror sitting on the counter. "I mean, are they fabulous, or are they fabulous?"

"And they compliment your skin tone," Temari agreed. "It's an added bonus."

Shikamaru, who was not in the mood for this, suggested they find somewhere to eat.

"Okay," Ino said, putting the 'Greetings from Gaara the Elephant' postcard she'd selected and her very fabulous flamingo glasses on the counter. "Is there a place here in the zoo?"

"It's closed for the season," the cashier told her. "There's a nice café in town, though."

"The town's in the opposite direction from where we need to go," said Ino. "I saw a hotel a ways east- The Sunset Tavern? Twilight Inn? Something like that. Do they serve lunch?"

"Oh." The cashier paused in counting out Ino's change and a look of embarrassment passed over her face. "They might, but I don't think it's your kind of place. Better to stick to the town."

"We can eat when we get back to the house," Temari called from the drink case. "I'm ready to leave anyway, if you guys are."

"Sure," said Shikamaru.

Ino thought of the night-blooming cereus plants outside. They were called 'The Queen of the Night' colloquially. How elegant would her living room at home be with a flower called the Queen of the Night sitting by the balcony?

"I'm ready to go, too. I just need you guys' help with one little thing first."

{}{}{}{}{}

Temari, Shikamaru, and Ino stood near the llama pen, looking at the plant Ino had picked out.

It was over a foot tall, about two feet around, and had three bare, drooping stalks. It was the perfect specimen. Ino was in love. Shikamaru, who lived to rain on other people's parades, was less enthused.

"How are we going to sneak out of here with something the size of a small child?" he asked. "This is stupid. Let's just leave."

"We're ninjas, and people do manage to kidnap small children," Temari pointed out. "There's a way to do this."

Normally she would not have advocated stealing public property, but this was a half-dead-looking weed they were talking about. Besides, her earlier brush with the law had left her bitter. Fuck the zoo police.

"Exactly! Stop being such a downer, Shikamaru." Ino clapped her hands in excitement. "Now, I have a plan all worked out already. All you two have to do is watch my body and get the plant once I dig it up."

"Watch your bo- don't tell me you're using your Mind-Body Switch for this?"

She was. The three of them would sit on a bench by the groundskeeper's shed until someone came out of it, at which point she would snare them in her jutsu, collect the necessary gardening equipment, and uproot her chosen cereus unhindered. Shikamaru was tasked with jumping the fence to the outside world with her unconscious form, while Temari would wait for her to return to the shed, and then go retrieve the flower.

It was a complex plan, but the ladies agreed it was foolproof. Not so much Shikamaru, but they ignored him. Temari was itching for any sort of action, and Ino would have sooner thrown herself on the ground and refused to get up than leave without one of the coveted Queens of the Night, three-year-old in the candy aisle style.

The only downside to the thing was that the voice of the very confused groundskeeper was echoing in the back of Ino's mind the whole time she was in his body, and for a mental hostage, he was rather demanding.

"_What is happening?"_ he shrieked from the edge of her consciousness as she began digging. _"What am I doing? Am I having a stroke?"_

"_This is an out of body experience,"_ she thought at him. That was her go-to explanation when she used her family's signature technique on the uninformed. Her targets were usually highly upset at first, but they were surprisingly willing to accept this story.

"_Oh,"_ he thought back, awed. _"I've read about these. Are you my spirit animal?"_

"_Absolutely,"_ she agreed.

He was quiet for a minute, marveling at the beauty and mysticism of it all.

"_I thought people go somewhere interesting during out-of-body experiences,"_ he thought finally. _"I don't want to watch myself do my own job. Can't I go to my neighbor's house instead?"_

"_What for?"_ she wondered, lovingly brushing a clump of dirt from the tangled roots.

"_What kind of spiritual guide _are _you?"_ he scoffed. _"My neighbor is a stone cold fox, in case you hadn't noticed. I want to watch her taking a shower or changing her clothes. Let's go."_

"_She's probably just eating lunch right now,"_ thought Ino, with mild disgust. _"You shouldn't use your powers for evil anyway."_

"_Appreciating the female form is hardly evil!" _retorted the groundskeeper. _"Frankly, I'm shocked that a spirit animal conforms to such puritanical social values!"_

"_You- what? Listen, pal, this is one of the most incredible things that will ever happen to you, alright?" _she thought angrily._ "How about you sit back and enjoy it for what it is instead of making up an itinerary?" _

"_Fine," _he sulked,_ "but for my next out-of-body experience, I want a new guide. Someone less judgmental."_

Sometimes Ino felt guilty about tricking people. This was not one of those times.

In the end, everything worked out according to plan. She returned to the shed, saw Temari slink off to collect the plant, and propelled herself from the groundskeeper's body. She awoke several minutes later on her back outside the zoo's fence, while Shikamaru and Temari whispered sweet nothings to each other off to her left.

"Oh, hey, don't pick me up off the ground or anything," she said groggily, sitting up. "I love getting sand in my underwear."

"You're welcome for all our help," Temari replied, "and for me saving your sunglasses from being crushed under your enormous head. Here."

She handed them over. All the rhinestones were intact, but the right lens was a little scratched. Ino could not, in good conscience, give Hinata a damaged gift; she'd just have to keep them. Standing up, she lifted the cereus and cradled it against her chest with one arm. She slipped on the sunglasses with the other.

To an outside observer (such as Shikamaru, who was smirking at her), she looked like a frazzled, sweaty mess with a bad sunburn, dirt under her nails and down her shirt, and flamingos on her face.

In her own mind, Ino both looked and felt magnificent. This had been a day of small victories; she'd found something new to talk about with the Kazekage, acquired the Park Place of flowers, and made the single greatest addition to her wardrobe ever.

Going to the zoo had just beaten out pool parties for the number one spot on the 'Fun Things to do in Suna' list. Number three was camel rides, and she guessed arguing with Temari could be number four.

Number five had been watching _Guiding Light_ with Kankuro, but she had an inkling it was about to be replaced by strutting around town in her flamingo sunglasses.

They were _scandalously_ fabulous, after all.

{}{}{}{}{}

A/N- I don't write action scenes well (or at all), so I just want to clarify Ino's plan for stealing the night-blooming cereus. She wanted to be in the body of a groundskeeper because no one would stop her from messing with it that way, and since she can communicate with the target while in their body, I'm assuming they'll also be able to see and remember everything she has them do. That was why she didn't just burst into his shed or hand the plant over to Temari or Shikamaru directly- if he saw them, he'd be able to figure out what was happening.

On a related note, night-blooming cerei are real, and some species do only bloom once a year. They aren't endangered as far as I know, but I'm taking an artistic liberty. Just pretend they were hunted near extinction or raccoons got them all or something. Get imaginative.


	9. The Triangle

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews/favorites/follows! Especially to my anonymous reviewer, since I can't respond to you in a PM.

So- you may have noticed it took a really long time to update, and that this is a _really_ long chapter. It's been even harder to revise this story than it was to write it in the first place, and there wasn't a good spot to put a lot of points I thought were sort of important, so I ended up combining bits of three different chapters to make this one. It's a big, huge info dump, basically.

All I ask is that you keep in mind that most of the things the characters are thinking here are their own opinions and perceptions, not necessarily what's actually going on. Also, this story is not just a bunch of random stuff happening, I swear. In the next couple chapters, an actual plot will take shape.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Triangle

The morning following the zoo trip, the three siblings adjourned to the living room after breakfast so that Temari could debrief them on New Year's.

She stood in front of the coffee table arranging a stack of papers while her brothers settled into their usual seats, Gaara in a worn purple armchair, Kankuro sprawled across the couch. The TV, which had been put on mute, was playing an unsettlingly sensual commercial for women's shampoo in the background.

"This is kind of funny," Kankuro commented, watching the model squirt half the bottle into her hand. "We haven't all been alone together like this in a month, almost."

"Mm," Temari mumbled.

"You know what I was thinking?" he continued. "We should go on a family vacation this year. Or try to, anyway, since we're all so busy." He let out an amused snort. "I mean, I've got sooo much stuff to do these days I'm surprised I have time to breathe, but I think I can make room for a short trip somewhere."

"Let's focus on New Year's right now," said Temari.

'Get serious,' said the look she gave him.

"Yeah, sure thing," he agreed sullenly.

Kankuro was always suggesting dopey things like that. Once, a few years earlier, he'd come up with the idea of family game night, which his siblings had found to be roughly as enjoyable as dental surgery. He'd cancelled it after one abysmal Thursday evening spent playing Jenga, but Gaara had walked into the kitchen the next week to find him and Temari playing some card game that looked like it was intended for children. Neither of them had invited him, naturally.

"Alright," Temari began. "So- I've got a schedule and a list of reminders here for you two to keep, and then I've just got a couple other things to go over real quick."

She gave each of them their handouts.

"Ready? Okay, so the invitations said 6:30, which means that a few people will be here at six, and some might come even earlier. You should both be ready by 5:30 at the latest, just to be safe. For the first forty-five minutes, we're going to serve appetizers in the parlor, while Ine sets up the dining room.

"Now, Councilor Kaneko's wife likes to think she's helping out-" she rolled her eyes- "so if she asks one of you what she can do, send her to the dining room, _not_ _the kitchen_. I don't want her putting things in the oven and adding spices to the food and generally bothering the shit out of Ine, but she can rearrange things on the table all she wants."

She looked up at them to assess how much of this was sinking in.

Kankuro, unable to resist the siren song of daytime television even when he couldn't hear it, was trying to lip read a home insurance ad; Gaara probably was listening, but he never gave her any input into things like this until it was too late to make changes.

As they got closer to the party- probably on the morning of- Kankuro would realize he had only a vague idea of what he was supposed to be doing, Gaara would remember socializing made him apprehensive, and she would be called upon to give one a walk-through of the evening, and the other subtle reassurances to allay anxieties he was too proud to state outright. There would be much confusion and gnashing of teeth, at least one of them would discover the outfit they'd been planning to wear had a hole or a stain, and she'd have a headache by three in the afternoon.

That was how their family did holidays.

"Any questions so far?" she prompted.

Gaara shook his head. Kankuro didn't respond at all, so she took a step to her left to block his view of the TV. She understood that this was not exciting stuff, but expecting him to pay attention for ten minutes was hardly asking for the moon on a stick, was it?

"Okay, so Ine's getting two helpers from the village in for the night to help her- yes?"

Kankuro was raising a limp arm as though he wasn't quite sure if he was allowed to speak without being called on first. "I have a question. Did you decide to do that Chinese Zodiac thing?"

"Yes," said Temari. "Why?"

"Well, I saw this display in a store window the other day of disposable plates and stuff, and they had Zodiac designs on them. They were those fancy, heavy duty ones."

"We already talked about this," she reminded him. "Plastic plates are alright for some parties, but not for this one."

"Yeah, I know you said that, but they would make cleaning up so much easier for Ine-"

"Kankuro," Temari interrupted firmly. "We talked about this, too. Ine can clean up just fine. We pay Ine to clean up. Ine does not mind doing it."

"I never said she minded," Kankuro replied, mildly indignant. "Can't you just come look at the stuff I'm talking about? They're really nice. You can barely tell they're not real ceramic."

"Are you serious? People aren't going to be able to tell the difference between plastic and china?"

"I'm just making a suggestion! God, who made you the Boss of Parties, anyway? We have ideas, too!"

He raised his eyebrows at Gaara, encouraging him to contribute an idea, but none was forthcoming.

Kankuro faced forward and glared at Temari's thighs, which were covering the TV screen.

His brother and sister were alike in a lot of ways. They were both logical, both pragmatic, both slow to smile and quick to scoff. He, on the other hand, operated primarily on emotion and instinct, and he was certain that that was what this boiled down to.

His siblings saw him as being irrational, and melodramatic, and easily upset by things that they would either ignore or brood about later (well, okay, the brooding was mostly just Gaara, but Temari had to have her own subterranean spring of hurt feelings). They thought of him as being goofy, and, by extension, all of his ideas as being goofy.

Kankuro was the village idiot up in this piece.

"I didn't see either of you putting any ideas into action," Temari said when he didn't respond, "so I guess I was elected to the post of Party Boss by the silent majority."

"We didn't do anything because you won't listen to us, not because we can't think of stuff by ourselves!"

"You can't even follow the directions I made _for_ you! What time did I just tell you to be ready by? If you can answer that without looking at the paper, then I'll get you your plastic plates."

Kankuro started saying something about how she was a control freak, but Gaara tuned them out.

Not so long ago, he had actually liked listening to their bickering. Every time they fought, they made up with no lasting ill-will, and he had found the strength of their bond inspiring. It had always made him think about forgiveness, and second chances, and the durability of love, and blah blah blah things had changed, and now it was old and annoying and he wished they'd shut up so he could leave already.

"I'm tired of you always doing this, Kankuro," Temari was complaining. "You focus on one little thing and lose sight of everything else. You are being _so unreasonable_ right now."

"You're the one being unreasonable!" he shot back. "All I wanted was for you to think my idea over, but NO, Kankuro suggested it, so it's automatically worthless!"

"Stop speaking in the third person," Gaara muttered, rubbing at his eyes. "I hate when people do that."

Temari rounded on him. "I'm tired of your attitude, too, Gaara," she said. "There's no reason for you to be so negative all the time."

He scowled at her wordlessly, which Temari knew meant she would be getting nothing further out of him except more scowling. She glanced from him to Kankuro, who was still fuming over the perceived inequities in their tableware selection process, and put her hands to her hips.

"Fine!" she declared in exasperation. "Fine! I give up. One of you wants to pick a fight over something pointless, and one of you wants to complain about something totally irrelevant. I really don't know why I bother with you two."

Her brothers watched in silence as she snatched up her papers and tapped them on the coffee table to neaten the pile.

"We're not accomplishing anything here, so I'll let you read the schedule and the list of important points on your own time," she said, slipping back into her usual business-like demeanor. "If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, but I'd recommend you both do your best to work things out by yourselves."

She fixed each of them in turn with a disdainful look, and swept off to the kitchen.

Kankuro stared after her in befuddlement. And in admiration of her dramatic exit, but mostly befuddlement.

"Did Temari just tell us to go fuck ourselves?" he wondered aloud. "I'm pretty sure that was Temari's way of saying 'go fuck yourselves.'"

Gaara shrugged. She had to be extra pissed off to speak to them that sharply, but it was nothing to warrant Kankuro's concern. If history had taught him anything, it was that she would have forgiven him by lunchtime.

"Do you think we should go apologize?" Kankuro asked in a low, confidential tone. "We were being kind of rude."

Gaara shrugged again, feeling irritated. "I was not the one arguing with her."

"Yeah, but still." Kankuro scooched to the edge of his seat and pushed the schedule Temari had made for him off to one side. "Come on, man. It'll mean more if we both tell her we're sorry."

At that, Gaara felt a prickle of bitterness.

Back in the old days, not long after his first Naruto exposure, he'd turned to self-help books for tips on how to stop being a raging shithead. Then he'd discovered most self-help books advocated the idea that thoughts could change reality, which he was pretty sure was a symptom of schizophrenia, so he'd started reading psychology books instead. In those, he'd stumbled across a concept called triangulation.

Triangulation involved two family members using a third to mediate conflicts, often in the form of having them carry messages between them. It did seem to refer primarily to dysfunctional families, but he hadn't cared about that part because it was so perfect for his situation.

Kankuro and Temari fought like feral cats. He was no longer the monster under the bed. It followed, then, at least in his mind, that they would start coming to him to complain about each other, he would help them resolve their arguments, and the three of them would form an equilateral triangle of volatile sibling love. It was beautiful, right up to the point where it never happened.

His siblings did not need or want his help to sort out their quarrels, and every time they kissed and made up they would go play Jenga, or sing karaoke, or do some other idiotic thing together while Gaara did paperwork. They weren't so much a triangle as a line between two points, and then another point that hung out in its office by itself.

So, no, he was quite sure that Temari was _not_ waiting with baited breath for him to beg for her forgiveness.

"I have work to do," he said. "If you want to apologize, go by yourself."

Kankuro watched Gaara stand and smooth out his robes. As he disappeared through the door that would take him to the office building, he was hit with the sudden urge to jump up and go after him.

He wanted to grab Gaara and shove him back into his seat, drag Temari in from the kitchen, and let them both know what absolute assholes they were being. He wanted to tell Temari that her extra-salty brand of tough love was not helpful in all situations, and to explain to Gaara that his dirty looks and cold silences were _never_ helpful. He wanted to make them understand how ridiculously unfair it was that he'd been fired over something he'd had nothing to do with, and then been treated like a nuisance by the person whose mistake had cost him his job.

He wanted apologies. He wanted resolution. He wanted to force them to communicate like normal people just this once, because he was tired of walking on eggshells and trying to decode their double-speak all the goddamn time.

He also kind of wanted to watch the talk show that was on TV.

…This was a dilemma.

Kankuro considered his options. If he knew himself- and he liked to think he did- a family heart-to-heart-to-heart would make him emotional. It would also make him frustrated, because his siblings would resist it mightily and throw in snide remarks. He'd probably get upset and start shouting, which would only make everything worse, and then he'd be too wound up to enjoy _Guiding Light_ by the time it came on.

He loved his family, but _Guiding Light_ was doing a lot more for his mental health than they were these days.

He picked up the remote and switched on the sound.

{}{}{}{}{}

Ine's predecessor, Kaede, had been the family's housekeeper since long before Temari was born, and it was astounding how different the place was without her. It wasn't so apparent in the big things; to everyone's surprise, Ine had turned out to be quite capable, and the household ran smoothly under her dingbat-tastic command. It was in the details that the changes showed.

Kaede had used vinegar in most of her cooking and bleach in all of her cleaning, which had always given the house a distinctive smell, but Ine was fond of cinnamon air freshener. Kaede had been particular about how she arranged things like dish cloths, and kitchen utensils, and the various other ephemera of the kitchen, but Ine left them wherever she happened to put them down. Kaede had had a penchant for dragons, and so their decorating scheme had always been reptile-based, but Ine was slowly edging them out because her cousin's pet iguana had bitten off his finger, and now she was afraid of lizards.

Temari was by no means a sentimental person, but the little reminders that Kaede was gone never failed to get to her. She had been one of the only constants in hers and Kankuro's and Gaara's lives, and with childhoods as tumultuous as theirs, stability was something precious. Not to mention the fact that she had been Temari's sole female influence after Karura's death; she would give anything, some days, to hear her raspy frog voice giving her outdated fashion tips, like 'People will think you're a hussy if you don't put on some pantyhose' or 'Tuck your blouse into your slacks so we can see your nice figure.'

She missed her, insane advice and all.

Of course, Kaede had been old and arthritic, so there were areas of house that she hadn't been able to clean in years. Tasks that involved kneeling, stretching, heavy lifting, or climbing a ladder had been beyond her for close to a decade, and Temari discovered new projects for her and Ine every time she turned around. The biggest and most daunting one of all was clearing out the basement, which was in shambles, but they'd agreed that it would be best to put that off until New Year's was out of the way.

That might have been a mistake. The good china and great-grandma's silver were down there somewhere, hidden amongst crates of vinyl records, vacuum-sealed bags of old clothing, and enough broken chairs to furnish Suna's town hall. Finding them was proving to be an expedition.

"Miss Temari!" Ine called, her voice muffled by the stacks of boxes between them. "I think I found part of the silver!"

Temari put the photo album she'd been flipping through down onto one of the myriad chairs. "Just part of it? The whole thing should be together. Let me see."

There was a scraping noise as Ine kicked her way through the mountains of cardboard, and then she appeared on her hands and knees underneath a rickety folding table that was rusted to the point it could no longer be folded.

"Here!" she exclaimed, holding out a pot. "I'm not sure what it is- maybe it's for soup?"

Temari took the artifact from her and looked it over critically.

"This is stainless steel," she said. "It's part of a fondue set."

"Oh." Ine leaned back on her haunches. "How do you know the difference between that and silver?"

"Stainless steel doesn't tarnish," explained Temari, "and if you look on the bottom of the pot, it says 'do not microwave- stainless steel.'"

Ine nodded, looking enlightened.

Temari ran her fingers around the rim.

"I'm surprised we still have this," she commented. "The part that heats it up broke ages ago."

"We should throw it out, then," said Ine. "The bottom is rounded, so it won't be good for much."

"Yeah, probably."

Temari made no move to set it down. She stared into it instead, reminiscing on all the cheese and chocolate that had once bubbled up from its hot, steely depths.

It had been gross. She'd never liked fondue.

"My mother used to put this out at all our parties," she told Ine. "We always had fondue, and we always had disco music. My mom loved everything from the 70's."

Ine, who was physically incapable of sitting still, was now on her feet, peering into a box on the table labeled 'Flip-Flops/Coin Collection/Blender.'

"I bet I can find a replacement heating part. I got a connection at an appliance warehouse, you know." She smiled dreamily. "My boyfriend says that's networking. He's so smart."

Temari exhaled sharply through her nose. "Don't bother. It was always either burnt or hardened at the end of the night, and hardly anyone ever ate it."

She tossed the pot on top of a plastic suitcase by the stairs. That could be the start of the trash pile.

"My parents' parties were the worst," she declared.

"I guess they must have been busy with other things," said Ine as she lifted the blender out of the box. "Running the village and all, I mean."

She pressed an ear against its base and began pushing the buttons. Temari wasn't sure what she was expecting to hear, since it wasn't even plugged in, but asking Ine questions like that typically only generated more questions.

"My father was very busy," she said, "but my mother didn't get involved in politics. She was a kunoichi, but she left active duty when they got married, and became a housewife." She couldn't stop her mouth from quirking into a little grin. "Not that she was very _good_ at being a housewife. That was why we had Kaede."

Ine made an amused sound and plunked the blender back into the box. "It must be hard to go from being a ninja to doing domestic junk like this."

"Well, it's not a family-friendly career," said Temari, taking a seat in one of the more stable-seeming chairs. "Not for mothers. If a kunoichi wants to have children, she usually has to retire first."

"Do you want to have children someday?"

She paused before replying.

The simple answer was 'yes.' The complete answer was that she did want children, but she also wanted a career in politics, and occasional ninja missions, and to be with Shikamaru, and to stay near her brothers, and feasibly, she could only accomplish two or three of those goals in a lifetime.

It was hard to be both a mother and a kunoichi, but it was equally hard to win a bid for public office in Suna without a long and distinguished service record. Those positions typically went to shinobis who'd retired due to age or injury. The only women Temari could think of who had had successful political careers there were members of the council, and that was not an option for her. It was one thing for the Kazekage to appoint first-degree relatives as his personal advisers; giving them council seats would draw accusations of nepotism, or worse, corruption.

Complicating matters further were the facts that as the Nara Clan heir, Shikamaru couldn't leave Konoha to live in Suna with her, and as a foreign-born kunoichi, she couldn't join Konoha's ninja ranks if she went there to live with him.

And then, of course, there were Kankuro and Gaara to think about. They were grown men now, but a part of her could not forget the boys who couldn't figure out how to use the washing machine that time Kaede went on vacation, or who she'd had to remind to take showers when they were teenaged and gross, or who still sometimes asked her to choose their outfits for important events… They only depended on her for little things these days, but Temari knew well how the little things add up.

It was all very troublesome, as Shikamaru might say.

"Miss Temari?"

Ine's voice snapped her out of her reverie.

"I wasn't trying to be nosy or nothing, it's just that there's a whole bunch of toys back there." She gestured vaguely to the jungle of clutter on the far side of the room.

"If you or Mister Kankuro or the Kaz… if you or Mister Kankuro is going to have kids eventually, we may as well keep them, huh?"

Temari shrugged one shoulder. "I'm more worried about the china and the silver for now, but I'll see if Kankuro wants to go through them. He loves nostalgia."

"Right-o!" Ine folded up the box she'd been rummaging through. "This blender's busted, by the way. We should toss it. Or have a yard sale or something."

Temari frowned at her. "We should have a yard sale to get rid of a broken blender?"

"Absolutely!" said Ine. "People will buy anything if it's at a yard sale! They think they're getting the good bargains that way. They don't care if it's broken, or dirty, or useless… they even buy old shoes. Can you imagine that? People buy other people's shoes that they don't want anymore, and then they put them on their own feet."

She twisted the ring on her left index finger, looking off into space with a mystified expression. "I think that's how you get ringworm."

"If we have a yard sale, we won't sell shoes," Temari promised as she stood up. "Broken appliances only. Now, the china…?"

{}{}{}{}{}

Chouji was deeply concerned.

At the moment, he was hovering in the doorway of the living room, watching Kankuro watch TV. Or maybe 'watching Kankuro look at TV' would be a more accurate description; he had a vacant, unfocused expression on his face that suggested he wasn't aware of what was playing, which was probably a good thing, because it was an infomercial about colon cleansing. He didn't seem to have noticed either Chouji or the fly crawling across his knee, and he was slumped into the couch in such a way that it appeared as though he was melting into it.

He looked, for all the world, like a lobotomy patient.

Chouji rapped his knuckles against the doorframe.

"Hey, Kankuro," he said.

Kankuro started, his surprise dispersing the air of lethargy that hung around him.

"I'm sorry to just show up like this, but I was wondering if you were free to spar with me? Shikamaru said it's too hot out, and Ino's got this horrible sunburn so she doesn't want to go outside and make it worse."

Kankuro's nose wrinkled in displeasure. "Uh… well, I don't know. It _is_ pretty hot out, I think, and I haven't been able to find the sandals I wear for training, so…"

He shrugged helplessly.

"Want to just hang out here for a while? There's air conditioning."

Chouji had never known Kankuro to turn down a fight. Something was wrong here.

"What _is_ this?" Kankuro asked, taking notice of what was on the TV. "You're supposed to put cayenne pepper on steak, not up your… Hey, want to watch a cooking show?"

Chouji always wanted to watch a cooking show, even right after seeing people do unspeakable things with the ingredients, so he took a seat on the couch.

"Do you get _Meals by Mari_ here?" he asked. "That one's my favorite."

"I've never heard of it," said Kankuro as he flipped through the channels. "Must be a local show. Oh, hey, how'd your teaching thing go yesterday? I forgot to ask at breakfast."

"It was pretty good, I think. The kids seemed to be listening and some of them asked questions, so I guess those are good signs. I had fun."

Kankuro found a station he liked and stretched his legs out to rest his feet on the coffee table.

"Me and Temari used to guest lecture at the academy sometimes," he said, "but I hated it. The kids wouldn't sit still, and whenever I had to take them to do target practice or taijutsu training, someone wound up crying. Children suck at _everything_- it honestly blows my mind that anyone manages to become a ninja."

"Teaching isn't for everyone," agreed Chouji. "The Hokage had to send one of the jounin instructors on a long mission a while back, and she asked Shikamaru to fill in for part of the time the guy was gone. He didn't like it either." He smiled faintly at the memory. "But then I started helping him out and that's what made me want to be a teacher, so there was a silver lining, I guess."

"Huh." Kankuro looked dubious.

"It's all about finding something that motivates you," Chouji explained. "Jobs are just like romance: to stay in love, you need passion, and commitment, and a lover that makes you happy. Except the lover is your job in that metaphor. Get it?"

That was one of Dr. Kenshin's all-time greatest sayings. Others included 'The definition of you is you,' and one about how good eating habits are like making smart investments in the stock market. Dr. Kenshin was something of a quote machine.

Before Kankuro could comment, the commercial break ended, and the viewers at home began learning how to make breakfast crepes.

Chouji had never had an opportunity to learn about breakfast crepes before, and so he found the program deeply engrossing.

Kankuro seemed less entranced by the process. He was watching with a faraway look that implied he had something more serious than French breakfast treats on his mind, and he drummed his fingers on his knee all throughout the segment, a gesture that typically meant he was thinking about something unpleasant.

When it was over, he clasped his hands together and gazed pensively at the screen.

"Hey, man, I was just wondering something," he said. "If you become a teacher, how would… I mean, what about Shikamaru and Ino, right? You wouldn't be on a team with them anymore."

Chouji was not entirely sure what his point was. He waited for a beat to let him elaborate, but he didn't.

"Well, I'd miss them," he said cautiously, "but it's not like I would never see them again. And no one stays with their genin team forever."

Kankuro's brow creased. "Yeah," he said. "I guess no one does."

There was a weird moment when he was staring at the credits of the cooking show like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Chouji was trying to figure out what was happening. But then it passed, and Kankuro turned to him with a gleam his eye that was firmly grounded in the here and now.

"Do you think it's expensive to make crepes?" he wondered. "Like, if you looked at how much the ingredients cost and the time it takes to cook them, would it make sense to serve them in a restaurant?"

Chouji blinked. "Um… I don't know. There's a place in Konoha that makes them, and they must be doing alright. They're still open."

Kankuro nodded, seeming pleased. "Cool. Thanks, man."

"…Sure."

He rose from his seat and stretched. "I'm going to go look for my shoes, but I'll just wear these ones if I can't find them. You go tell Shikamaru to stop being such a lazy fuck, and I'll meet you guys in the front yard in fifteen minutes. Then we'll go train."

He bounded off to his bedroom, humming 'Born to Run' under his breath.

Chouji stared at the TV in consternation. He found it truly amazing that Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro ran a village at times.

He liked them as people, but they were so _weird._

{}{}{}{}{}

It was a quarter past ten- right in between breakfast and lunch- and Gaara was starving.

Kankuro had always used to stop by around this time of day with an update on what he and Temari were doing and a snack, which his metabolism had apparently become accustomed to, so he'd gotten into the habit of bringing something from home over the last few weeks. Then Temari's meeting this morning had disrupted his routine, and he'd forgotten to get an apple from the kitchen.

This was exactly why Gaara hated disruptions in his routine. One thing goes wrong at eight in the morning, everything else is ruined for the rest of the day.

There was a vending machine two floors down, in the legal department, but the things in it had a tendency to get stuck right over the little door on the bottom. It wasn't too difficult to reach up inside and knock them down, but he'd feel beyond foolish if someone happened by and saw the Kazekage kneeling on the ground, up to his elbow in the vending machine, trying to fish out a packet of 100-calorie diet cookies. They were not the most masculine snack choice.

Still, even that sounded better than going home and getting an apple. His earlier conversation with his brother and sister had not been enjoyable, and he was sure to run into at least one of them at the house. That might be a little awkward just now.

Gaara leaned on his hand and swiveled his chair around to look out the window. He couldn't see the street unless he got up, but the rather sterile view of the upper stories of the surrounding buildings suited him fine.

He wondered if Temari and Kankuro were best friends again yet. It was entirely possible. He'd spent many long years trying to figure out what made their relationship so close without coming up with any answers, but they certainly had something special.

When he was young, he'd had a secret, spiteful desire to see a rift that they couldn't repair open between them, mostly because he'd wanted to smash every beautiful thing he encountered. He was no longer so malicious, but sometimes, he still wished their relationship would cool. Not be destroyed- just be less intense.

He wanted very much to believe that he felt that way because their great love for each other made them act in illogical ways at times, and illogical ninjas, or advisers, were a liability. For example, why would Temari tell Kankuro she'd placed a personal ad on his behalf before telling him? Why would Kankuro's input mean more than his in that situation? And on that note, why had Kankuro felt it necessary to accompany her to his office? Did he think she needed reinforcements to face her own brother?

What had they been afraid he was going to _do_ that day, throw her out the window?

_Illogical._

Gaara stirred restlessly in his seat.

There was, of course, that other secret desire he'd had back in the days of Shukaku, the one he'd kept hidden even from himself until meeting Naruto. If Kankuro and Temari were not so close to each other, then maybe-

Someone knocked on the door.

He turned his chair back around. "Enter."

The latch clicked open, and a strawberry red Ino peered through the crack.

"Am I disturbing you?" she asked.

He shook his head.

She stepped into his office, leaving the door open so that all the cold from the air conditioner could escape into the hall.

"I have some spreadsheets for you," she said as she crossed the room to his desk. "They're the ones about the taxes on fabric- Shikamaru asked me to bring them up because he went someplace with Chouji and your brother."

Suna and Konoha had always done a brisk trading business in fabrics, but it had been a stumbling block during this negotiation. Gaara feared Konoha's market had, at long last, reached its saturation point. That could be disastrous.

He took the proffered papers from her hand. "Thank you."

"Sure."

She stood there for a second, a sly smile playing across her sunburned face. He was about to ask her if there was something else she needed, but then she whipped a card out from behind her back.

"This is from me," she said. "It's a souvenir from the Wind Country Zoo."

His eyes flicked up to meet hers curiously. Why had she brought him something from a place only a few hours away from his own house?

He took the card and flipped it over to see the picture.

"Oh," he said. "It's that elephant."

"You already knew they named it after you?"

He nodded. "The zoo sent me a letter when it was born," he told her.

"Oh, okay." She sounded disappointed. "I just thought it was cute. The elephant, I mean."

The little smile from a moment ago was gone. He looked down at the postcard and studied the other Gaara's fuzzy head.

He'd never seen an elephant in the flesh. He'd never wanted to, because they looked like they would smell bad. Gaara didn't care to spend money on an entrance ticket to the zoo only to hang around stinky animals all day, but it was intriguing to think that somewhere out in the world, there was a stinky animal named in his honor.

"I've never seen a picture of it," he said. "Thank you for bringing it to me."

The smile returned. She glanced at the stack of books at the front of his desk and raised one eyebrow in anticipation.

Hesitantly, he reached out and propped the photo of Gaara the Elephant against them.

"Oh, that's so sweet!" she exclaimed happily. "I didn't know you'd like it enough to put it on your desk!"

He didn't, but he had a feeling she would not be pleased if he said so.

"Well, I'll let you get back to work," she said. "I'll see you in our meeting tomorrow, if I don't see you at dinner or breakfast first. Take care now, Kazekage-sama!"

"Good-bye," he called as she left his office. She closed the door all the way this time, thankfully. Gaara hated running up the electricity bill without good reason.

Once she was gone, he picked up the postcard and examined it in detail.

Why had she given this to him? If it was some sort of attempt at bribery, it was very feeble. It wasn't unheard of to give Kages a token to show respect, but a picture of an elephant was hardly a symbol of admiration. It was just a symbol of an elephant.

He leaned back in his chair, stumped.

Was it possible that she just… liked him? Not in the way some of the sillier girls around the village, the type who still used 'like' to express attraction, 'liked' him, but the way one reasonable adult liked another reasonable adult.

She did pay him an awful lot of attention. He'd found it odd that she was so familiar when they met in the kitchen during his birthday party, and then again when she'd brought up Chizuko the next day, but, really, she had been going out of her way to engage him in conversation the whole time she'd been in Suna. He couldn't overlook their walk downtown, either. There was no good explanation for that little adventure except that she had wanted to spend time with him.

It seemed that Yamanaka Ino wanted to be his friend.

Gaara placed the postcard back against the stack of books. Naruto had reached out to him, and Temari and Kankuro had too, to some degree, but that was a long time ago now. No one had made an active effort to get close to him in… well, it had been awhile.

This was unexpected.

His stomach made a sound that recalled a bathtub drain being unstopped, and he decided he would go downstairs to fight with the vending machine after all. Dignity aside, he was hungry.

It made no sense to let pride stand in the way of getting what one needed.


	10. The Number One Private Detective in

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Thanks for the reviews/favs/follows! I'm sorry it's taking so long to update now, but I graduate in a little less than a month, and between all the last minute BS from school and preparing for my licensing exam, I've barely had the time to even make revisions. Hopefully, things will be calmer come summer.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Number One Private Detective in Wind Country

Chouji and Shikamaru had returned from their afternoon of sparring flooded with testosterone, and since there were no distressed damsels to rescue or empty beer cans to crush, they'd channeled their energy into making a flip chart for the trade negotiations.

In their free time, Chouji and Shikamaru were enormous dorks.

"I don't get the point of this," Ino told them when they showed her their outline for it. "We've already met with the Kazekage, like, eight times. Isn't it kind of late now to bust out a chart?"

It was a Monday afternoon, and they were lounging around in Chouji's room. They would have been outside, in their usual hangout spot in the backyard, but Ino's sunburn was starting to think about peeling, and she didn't want to further anger her skin by sitting out in the heat. She was doing just fine without melanoma, thanks.

"How is it too late?" Shikamaru asked as he grabbed a pillow off of a chair to rest his head on. "The chart's going to illustrate our points as we're talking. It'll be helpful."

"_Talking_ illustrates our points as we're talking," retorted Ino. "That's why it's called a negotiation, not quiet reading time."

Shikamaru rolled his eyes at Chouji, who shook his head. Some people in the world appreciated the value of a well-designed visual aid, and some people did not. Ino just wasn't down with flip charts. It was her loss.

"Shouldn't we be coming up with a real strategy, anyway?" she went on. "We're going back home in fifteen days, and we have no progress to show Tsunade-sama so far."

Shikamaru snorted mirthlessly. "I don't think we're going to get anywhere until the Kazekage hands this over to someone else. Bargaining with that guy is like talking to a wall."

Ino sat up a bit on Chouji's bed. "What do you mean?" she asked. "You don't think he knows what he's doing?"

Those were fighting words. Chouji leaned over the jumbo pad of paper and attempted to look busy.

"No, he does. The Kazekage's a smart guy." Shikamaru shrugged. "I just don't think building diplomatic relationships is his strong point."

"Huh." Ino flopped backwards and twirled a lock of her hair around one finger, thinking the matter over. "Tsunade-sama seems to like him," she said finally. "We didn't have a good relationship with Suna _before_ he took office."

Shikamaru stirred in his spot on the floor, annoyed. He was trying to take a nap, not discuss the Kazekage's strengths and shortcomings. Converting the outline to an actual chart was going to fall to Chouji, but he always had been the man of action between the two of them. Ino was disrupting a beautiful system.

"He's great at building goodwill between Suna and other villages, but working out treaties is a completely different thing," he explained. "A successful diplomat has to know how to read people, and how to figure out what they'll respond to. It's all about personalities."

"Maybe the Kazekage just likes being upfront," Ino suggested. "Flattery and mind games aren't his bag, but there's nothing wrong with that."

Shikamaru sighed. Why wouldn't she stop talking? Couldn't she see how into this conversation he wasn't?

"Ino," he said flatly, "the Kazekage is excellent at most parts of his job, but not at this part. It requires good social skills, and he doesn't have them."

Chouji focused super extra hard on tracing lines on the chart, praying that neither of his teammates would remember he was in the room and call him in for backup. Things never ended well when he was asked to pick sides in their disagreements. Shikamaru was an immovable object, Ino was an irresistible force, and whenever they collided, he got squished between them.

"He has _some_ social skills," insisted Ino. "He's not a robot. And actually, I think he's a pretty nice guy once you talk to him a little."

"I'm not saying he isn't a good guy, I'm saying he's weird," Shikamaru snapped. "You've said he's weird, too, so I don't know why you want to fight with me about it now."

That she couldn't argue with, because he was right. The Kazekage was indeed strange, and she'd said so on more than one occasion. Of course, she'd also said that Shikamaru was lazy and Chouji was fat on more than one occasion, but that didn't mean she liked hearing other people agree with her.

Ino had been watching Gaara closely over the last few weeks, and she'd picked up on his mannerisms well enough to recognize when he was feeling uncomfortable. An _awful_ lot of situations elicited his 'I'm-not-cool-with-this' face, she'd noticed: the time Kankuro said he thought that a popular actress had fake breasts, the time Ine related a story about how her cousin had started a cult, once when Temari mentioned the Chuunin Exam over dinner, and during most of his conversations with her, just to name a few instances. The rule of thumb seemed to be that the further the topic strayed from the weather, the more uneasy it made him.

She could see that it was difficult and unpleasant for him to act sociable, but the Kazekage was expected to maintain a certain image, and he wasn't one to shirk his duties.

He was trying. Hard. Ino had to respect that.

Shikamaru, on the other hand, didn't seem to appreciate his efforts at all, so she got up from the bed and tossed the outline for his dumbass flip chart in his general direction. She stood there with her arms crossed, waiting for him to tell her off so that they'd have grounds for a real argument, but he just rolled over on the carpet and pretended he'd somehow fallen asleep in the last five seconds.

Lame.

"I'm going to go call Sakura," she informed Chouji.

The moment Ino had flounced out the door, Shikamaru turned back around and propped his head up on one hand.

"She's troublesome on _purpose_," he complained.

"The phone is right here in the hallway, Shikamaru! _I can hear you_!"

Shikamaru cast a tired, beseeching look at Chouji, as though asking him to handle this so he could get back to his nap.

Chouji fiddled nervously with his marker.

_Squish._

{}{}{}{}{}

Ever since the trip to the zoo, Shikamaru had been in a sour mood.

It had been his and Temari's first real date (some people probably wouldn't have counted an excursion that included a platonic friend as such, but he suspected that was as close as he was going to get), the first time she'd spent more than an hour with him on this particular trip to Suna, and the last time she'd talked to him in nearly five days.

Oh, they still saw each other over group meals, and he'd helped her and Ine dig through the basement for the dishes they were going to use for New Year's one afternoon, but they couldn't _talk_ talk when there were other people around. He'd attempted to get her alone several times, without success. Ine had even made a point of suggesting the two of them look through the darkest, most secluded corner of the cellar during their flatware hunt, but Temari wouldn't take the bait.

Shikamaru had no clue what was going on between them anymore. He was in love; he'd never told her that in so many words, but he'd been operating under the assumption that she knew, and felt the same. Now, though, she seemed to be waffling between her usual brand of understated affection and complete apathy.

As he'd said before, Shikamaru did not like waffles. He liked wafflers even less.

He'd taken to periodically dropping by the kitchen, which was New Year's Headquarters, in the hopes that she would ask for his help with something, but she shooed him away most of the time. He was starting to wonder why he bothered with a woman who didn't recognize the significance of _him_, of all people, volunteering for jobs, but his persistence finally paid off on Thursday.

He strolled into the kitchen not long after breakfast, intending to ask if anyone wanted him to pick something up for them at the corner store, to find Temari washing the dishes by herself.

"Where's Ine?" he asked, leaning against the counter next to the sink.

Temari scowled down at the plate she was scrubbing. It was covered in something reddish and sticky, and little bits of sponge fuzz were adhering to the gunk. It looked less clean now than when she'd started.

"She had to go home," she said. "Her neighbor called and said the wall between their houses is leaking. She thinks a pipe burst."

"Oh. That sucks." Shikamaru glanced at a dish rag on the back of a chair. "Want some help?"

Temari shook her head. "No, you don't have to. But if you've seen Kankuro, you can ask him to come in here."

Shikamaru grabbed the dish rag and a bowl from the strainer. "I've barely seen him since Saturday. He might be off training some more—I guess soap operas get old after a while. Where does this go?"

He held up the bowl. Temari paused her ineffective scouring.

"I said you don't have to do that," she told him. "You're a guest. We're not going to put you to work."

He shrugged. "I don't mind. And I'm not just a guest, am I?"

An unreadable look flickered over her face. They stood staring at each other for a moment, Shikamaru still holding up the bowl, soapy water trickling down over Temari's elbows, and he thought how funny it would have seemed to his twelve-year-old self that he would one day be arguing in _favor_ of doing the dishes, with that smirking Sand kunoichi who was two years older and two inches taller than him, no less.

"It goes in that cabinet over there," she said, jutting her chin at it. "On the middle shelf."

Since Shikamaru had to ask where everything belonged, and the dishes had been sitting out just long enough for stuff to harden on them, progress was slow. They avoided talking about anything important while they worked—Shikamaru told her about the flip chart, which would be making its debut in that afternoon's meeting, and Temari complained about how difficult it was to find theme party decorations that weren't made with glitter, or flimsy plastic, or, worst of all, flimsy glitter plastic—but at least they were in the same room again.

Just as Shikamaru was about to broach the subject of him maybe hanging around in Suna for the holiday instead of going home, there was a knock on the back door.

"Oh," said Temari, casting about for something to dry her hands on. "Kankuro or Ine probably forgot their key… Would you mind getting that?"

Shikamaru crossed the kitchen and opened the door.

Standing on the stoop was a man he had never seen before. He wore a fishing hat and a heavy trench coat, which would be like taking a bath in sweat by the time noon rolled around, and he was chewing on a toothpick. Shiranui Genma had always used to chew on a senbon before he chipped his left incisor on it one day, but Shikamaru had never known that people outside of old movies actually did that.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

The man plucked the toothpick from his mouth. "Maybe you can, maybe you can't. I'm looking for a dame by the name of Ina."

Shikamaru was about to ask if he meant 'Ine' or 'Ino,' but something made him stop. He wasn't sure if it was the man's bizarre use of the word 'dame,' the unfriendly gleam in his eye, or his obviously fake accent, but the guy seemed off.

"Who is it?" Temari called across the room, craning her neck to try and see outside.

Shikamaru looked at the stranger expectantly.

"The name's Juro," he said. "Ueno Juro."

Ueno Juro paused and squinted off into the distance thoughtfully. "But I just go by Ueno, so I guess… Yeah, it was supposed to be the other way around. Let me do it over."

"What?" Shikamaru asked in confusion.

"I'm introducing myself."

"I…you just said your name was—"

"Shh! It's a do-over."

Ueno Juro cleared his throat and screwed his face up to look tough again. "The name's Ueno. Ueno Juro."

By this time, Temari had decided to just wipe her hands on her skirt and come over to see who this strange person who couldn't get his own name right was.

"Alright," she said doubtfully, "and you're here to see someone?"

"Yes, ma'am." He'd dropped the unplaceable accent in favor of a low, gravelly tone that sounded like a mash-up of Popeye and a frog. "Ina. Is she in?"

Temari looked him over. "Can I ask what your business with her is?"

"Afraid not, ma'am. It's highly confidential."

He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

"Ueno Juro, number one private detective in Wind Country. Here's my card."

He forced it into Temari's hand, his face turning thoughtful again as she read it. "I should have gone with that introduction. Let me get another do-over."

"We know who you are now." She gestured at his card. "And this is just a sheet of loose-leaf."

He half-nodded, half-shrugged. "There was a delay at the printer's. I had to improvise. Anyhow—Ina. Is she in?"

Temari ignored his question. "It says here your office is in the Dune Village." She glanced up from the paper. "You're pretty far from home, huh?"

"Sure am. I'm, ah… on a trail, you could say."

Ueno Juro cast them a smug, sly look that made Shikamaru itch with the desire to slam the door in his face.

Temari folded up the paper and put her hands on her hips. "Well!" she said cheerily. "I'm sorry to tell you Ina isn't here, and we're not sure when she'll be back. I'd be glad to take a message for her, if you like."

The man's eyes narrowed. Shikamaru had serious doubts about his competency as a private detective, but apparently even he wasn't going to be thrown off that easily.

"Tell her…" He put the toothpick back in his mouth and tugged his hat lower on his face. "Tell her not to skip town."

With that, he swept away. A sweat stain was spreading down his back. Trench coats were _really_ not practical for the desert.

Shikamaru closed the door. "So that was strange," he observed. "Who do you think he was looking for?"

"Ino," Temari said tersely, shoving Ueno Juro's 'card' into her front pocket. "He was looking for Ino."

"How do you figure that?"

Temari wandered over to the kitchen counter and pressed her hand to the coffee pot to check how hot it was. "The Dune Village is that town next to the zoo, and we had to sign a guest book to get in last Friday." She took her mug from the dish strainer. "My guess is that they couldn't read Ino's handwriting, but someone must have recognized me or my name."

"The zoo? What does… Wait. You don't think he was here about that plant we took?" Shikamaru asked incredulously.

"That's exactly what I think." She took an enormous gulp of her coffee. "Luckily, we didn't commit an assault. It's illegal to use genjutsus on civilians in Wind Country, but since the Yamanaka clan's ability isn't—"

"Hang on a second." Shikamaru sat down at the table, his mind spinning. "Let's think about this. Ino was positive no one saw her digging the thing up, right?"

Temari shrugged her agreement.

"Well, she has some of her family's sensor abilities. Unless there was a ninja who knew how to mask their chakra spying on us, she'd have known if there was somebody close enough to see what she was doing. Also, if the town was looking for us because we committed a crime, why would they send a private detective? They would have sent a cop. Or called the police here in Suna, probably."

Temari blew a puff of air into her bangs. "Maybe that groundskeeper realized he'd been caught in a ninjutsu after we left, or maybe someone saw us outside with the… the whatever flower. I can't say for sure why they would hire a detective, but I think the zoo is a separate entity from the town itself. He might have a contract with them or something."

"So he's like the special forces of the zoo police?" Shikamaru joked.

Temari glared at him. "Be serious."

"I am. I just think it's kind of farfetched that they would go to all this trouble just to get some crummy plant back."

She pursed her lips. "So we stole something from the middle of nowhere, and then less than a week later, a detective who's _also_ from the middle of nowhere comes by on unrelated business, asking for the person who planned the whole thing? That's an amazing coincidence."

"But he didn't ask for Ino," Shikamaru pointed out. "He could have meant Ine, for all we know. Or maybe he was at the wrong house."

"Shikamaru, everyone knows who lives in Kazekage Tower," Temari said irritably. "People don't end up here by accident. And Ine hasn't left the village recently—she tells me every last detail of what she gets up to on her days off, so I would know if she'd gone out to the Dune Village and gotten herself in trouble."

Shikamaru fell silent. He didn't know why he kept letting women draw him into arguments lately. There were never any winners in these fights.

"I'm such a moron sometimes," Temari muttered, staring disconsolately into her coffee. "What was I thinking, even?"

If her theory was right, this could become a stumbling block to her political ambitions, he guessed. A part of him wanted to say 'I told you it was a bad idea,' but a bigger part of him didn't want to get jawed.

Also, you know, there was that whole 'supportive boyfriend' thing to do.

"Want me to make you some fresh coffee?" he offered. "That stuff's been sitting there all morning."

She shook her head. "Nah. I drank almost a whole pot, and it's only ten. I'd be climbing the walls."

Shikamaru hesitated.

"So then… you wanna go hang out in my room?" he asked tentatively.

Temari raised her eyes to his face.

"Just because _I_ always feel better when we… hang out in bedrooms," he explained, making a hand gesture that didn't actually mean anything. "It's endorphins or whatever. You know."

She rolled her eyes. "When you say it like that, what woman could resist?"

But she dumped the rest of her coffee into the sink, and beckoned for him to follow her from the room.

{}{}{}{}{}

Nara Shikamaru had shown up in Gaara's office for their three o'clock trade meeting at 2:55, with his teammates trailing almost a full minute behind him, a spring in his step, and a flip chart.

Gaara had never seen him so animated. Once the chart was set up on an empty chair, he immediately took charge of the meeting by launching into an explanation of why Suna should buy more grain, and no one else had had to say a word since.

For that, he was grateful. The flip chart was very distracting; everything Shikamaru said was repeated in the bullet points, and Gaara wasn't sure if he was supposed to be listening or reading. He tried doing both, but that just made it harder to do either. This was not an enjoyable experience.

"…So as you can see here in the chart, increasing the amount of grain you buy from us by 2 to 6% would save you money in the long run," Shikamaru was saying. "We would be spending at least 30% of that on buying more spices from…"

Gaara kept his face as blank and composed as ever, but after he'd lost focus, his mind had begun to wander.

At that particular moment, he was ruminating on how dull his job was most of the time. Six years ago, he'd imagined that he was going to be something like Suna's hero, the face and brain of the village, their last line of defense and ultimate protector. And he was all of those things, he guessed, but he had been picturing more smiting of enemies and less of… well, _this_.

"…increase revenue in a symbiotic relationship, rather than a lateral one, which I think we can all agree is…"

_This_ was soul-crushingly boring. He already knew the gist of everything that Shikamaru was saying anyway, but the fact remained that unless Konoha bought their fabric, Suna had no money to buy much of anything from them in return.

Gaara leaned back a bit in his chair. From this angle, he realized, he had a clear view of Ino, who was wearing the same expression of feigned interest that he was.

Ever since he'd decided that she was reaching out to him, Ino had become deeply intriguing. All week, Gaara had watched her at every opportunity to see what new insights he could gain into her character, her likes and dislikes, so on and so forth. He was waiting for a good chance to strike up a conversation, or to do something else that would let her know he was interested in her friendship, but he had to first conduct all the proper research, of course.

One does not simply make a friend. It requires planning.

"...dividends are the key in that scenario, but I think if your accounting department would run some numbers for us, we could get a better idea of…"

So far, his list of Yamanaka Ino facts included the following: she was a chuunin, a medic, and a part-time florist. She liked hair accessories and the color purple. She did not like asparagus, shoddy flower arrangements, or his sister. She claimed to be on a diet, but based on his observations of her eating habits, it was either a very lax diet or a joke. It was possible she had a fondness for animals—she'd given him a panda cookie jar and an elephant postcard, and she'd been wearing flamingo sunglasses lately—but that had yet to be confirmed. She talked and smiled and laughed a lot. When she wore perfume, she wore too much.

"…in regards to Plains Country. Since neither of us has a specific agreement with them for…"

All in all, Yamanaka Ino was not the sort of person Gaara would have ever imagined himself befriending. Each new thing he learned about her made him more aware of how little they had in common, but, oddly, he didn't find that disheartening.

Getting to know her, even passively, was sort of… exciting.

"…to the average citizens of Suna and Konoha. It's all well and good for the Kages to have an agreement, but…"

Chouji was talking now. That might mean he'd be expected to say something soon, too.

Gaara tried to rein in his attention, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. No matter what Konoha was offering, the only answer he could give them until they bought more fabric was 'Buy more fabric.' He'd told them that in every way he knew how. It didn't seem to be getting through. It was like he was asking someone on the other side of a locked to door to give him the key so he could get out, and they kept telling him they would, just as soon as he opened the door so they could pass it to him.

He couldn't pinpoint what the exact problem was, but they were in a real pickle here.

"…thoughts on this, Kazekage-sama?"

Gaara blinked. It seemed he was now in an even bigger pickle.

"We-e-ell," he said slowly, casting about for a response non-specific enough to conceal his inattentiveness, but that had enough relevance to the topic at hand (whatever it may have been) to pass for a real answer.

Shikamaru and Chouji were looking at him, waiting. His palms were starting to feel damp.

"Sorry to cut you off, Kazekage-sama," Ino interjected, "but can we go back a page in the chart? I think I missed something."

Shikamaru shot her a reproving glance as Chouji flipped the page.

"So basically, this is a breakdown of Suna's revenue from various tariffs. Not all of the goods…"

Good God, that had been timely. It probably wasn't intentional, but Gaara still felt a surge of gratitude towards Ino for rescuing him. He leaned back in his seat again, intent on Chouji.

From his peripheral vision, he could see one baby blue eye watching him through a veil of hair. Well, one last peek wouldn't hurt. It was rude to avoid eye contact, after all, and that wouldn't be very friendly.

He looked at Ino sidelong, and was met with a cheeky little grin. If cheeky little grins could talk (they can't, and Gaara usually found anthropomorphism juvenile and cloying) this one would be saying 'You're welcome,' mixed with a dash of 'Gotcha.'

Her sunburn had started to peel, making her resemble a particularly pink and blotchy onion, but Yamanaka Ino was quite lovely when she smiled.

Gaara quirked one corner of his mouth up in response before they both turned back to Chouji and the chart.

"…isn't a perfect analogy, but the point is that Suna stands to gain if Konoha increases trade with Plains Country. We're also recommending levying the tax on…"

This wasn't working. Once again, he was completely and fully lost.

{}{}{}{}{}

A/N: I just wanted to explain the bit about the leaking wall and burst pipe- I was picturing Ine living in a row home, which are pretty much the standard where I am, but I realized that not everyone might be familiar with them. They're like a long string of houses with no side yards, and backyards that are separated from the people on the next street by an alley about as wide as your shoulders.

It's like living in Lego City, basically.


	11. The Back-Alley Butcher

Thanks to all the reviews/favs/follows! Especially to my anonymous reviewer, since I can't respond to you in a PM.

A couple people have said there's not enough Gaara/Ino. There's going to be a LOT more of the two of them from here on in, but I've been taking it slow on purpose because I thought that would be a little more realistic, at least at first. They're both busy people (especially Gaara), they haven't really had much contact with each other until now, and my interpretation of Gaara is pretty reserved. Now he's started to notice Ino, though, so they're going to get more bonding time.

But I am still going to include the other characters. They're too much fun to leave alone!

And now two quick things: 1) I apologize for the long, long wait, but I've been away on vacation and didn't have my own computer to work on the story and 2) I didn't just pull the title of this chapter from nowhere. There's a very minor reference to it all the way back in Chapter 3, if anyone's interested.

Gaara Gets a Girlfriend

The Back-Alley Butcher

Everyone in the household of the Kazekage spent the next two weeks in a blur.

Gaara was working on the usual deluge of paperwork and Very Important Things that flooded his desk, but he was beginning to feel like he was drowning under it all. There was just too much stuff for one person to do alone, and he was tired (literally and figuratively) of devoting his every waking moment to Kazekage-ing.

He regretted firing Temari and Kankuro now. He was still irritated with them, more so about how they'd acted _after_ he fired them than about the personal ad, but he'd been thinking that he might have… snapped out on them, a little. (He'd heard Ino use that term in reference to Shikamaru one day, and he thought it was a very apt description of his behavior lately. _Snapped out_. It had a nice ring to it.)

The problem facing him now was how to get them back; he knew too much time had gone by to pass it off as a bad decision made in the heat of the moment, and announcing that they were both re-hired out of the blue would be insufficient. They would want an explanation. In one sense, there were about a million reasons he could give for his erratic behavior; vague unhappiness, a feeling of isolation, frustration with his inability to let them know what he needed from them as family, not as co-workers, low blood sugar because he'd whipped his rice into a wall instead of eating it that morning. In another sense, he couldn't explain himself at all, both because he didn't know how to go about telling them these things, and because he wasn't sure which of them even he believed.

Words and feelings could be very vexing.

The real truth of the matter was that Gaara was beginning to pull himself out of the funk of the last several months. He didn't know if he'd needed some time to brood, or some space from everyone, or the systemic shock of a near stranger trying to pal around with him, but he felt more like his usual self by the day.

There was also the fact that being in a bad mood all the time was positively exhausting. He had other things he wanted to do, like cultivate his cacti, which had become so neglected one had actually died, and go out to train, which he hadn't done in over a month, and maybe, if time allowed, walk around downtown with Ino again. He'd even heard a new joke from one of the Council members to tell her, since she seemed to like jokes: What's better than flowers on a piano? Tulips on an organ.

He didn't get it, but he thought she probably would since she was very knowledgeable about botany.

While Gaara was contemplating his family relations, Team 10 was spending their last two weeks in Suna getting serious about their mission. Shikamaru had received a phone call from Shizune one afternoon, inquiring into how the negotiations were going, and the realization that he had nothing good to report lit a fire under his ass. It was not the time to moon after Temari and take mid-day naps. It was time to rethink his whole bargaining strategy, time to look for a new spin on old information, time to force Ino and Chouji to stay up late at night with him to scour spreadsheets and past treaties in the hopes that they might find _something_ that would give them an edge.

As a great poet had once said, it was Hammer Time.

It was just as well that Shikamaru was staying out of Temari's hair, because the New Year's prep had reached a level of intensity that was usually reserved for handling forest fires and nuclear meltdowns. Between hunting for suitable decorations and haggling with the local food vendors about bulk discounts, Temari and Ine had been scrambling to find a replacement musical group after their original pick decided to change genres from classical to synth pop, reworking the menu in light of the discovery that the Secretary of the Treasury's new wife was allergic to most everything except celery, and tearing apart the basement with a mounting fear that the good china had somehow been thrown away.

Ine did manage to score some very nice, reasonably priced sparklers from one of her cousins, and for a fleeting moment it had seemed like something was finally going right, but then he informed them that they were stolen.

They decided to keep them anyway. Cheap sparklers didn't grow on trees, and it wasn't like they could just go return them to Stolen Fireworks Depot.

The only person who seemed unaffected by the flurry of activity sweeping the house was Kankuro, but that was probably because he hadn't really been around in… well, in a while.

Chouji inquired into his whereabouts over dinner one night, and when Temari said 'On a mission' and Gaara said 'In the living room,' they'd both briefly wondered if he had moved out without telling them. Ine reassured everyone that this was not the case, as she saw him every morning on his way out the door. She didn't know where he'd been going or what he'd been doing all day, but he seemed in much better spirits lately.

No one bothered looking into it any further than that. Gaara had too many other things to do, and Temari, along with Shikamaru and Ino, was too preoccupied with her own secrets to worry about Kankuro's.

The three of them had held a tactical meeting the evening after Ueno Juro, number one private detective in Wind Country, came to visit. They were in a tricky spot, but they'd agreed that the best course of action would be to look up how much of a fine they owed, donate double that to the zoo, and keep their fingers crossed that that would be the end of it.

Temari and Ino (who'd been demoted from co-party-planner to Ine's assistant in the interest of avoiding kunoichi-on-kunoichi violence) took an afternoon off to visit the courthouse's legal library. There, they learned that the fine for damaging public flora was between $100 and $300. They also learned that since the night-blooming cereus was endangered, and the official flower of Wind Country, the plants had been granted a special protected status.

By removing it from its natural habitat, or its 'federal nature preserve,' they had committed a class E felony, punishable by fines of up to $7,500, twelve months in prison, or both.

Clearly, their plan needed some revisions.

In a bid to buy them more time to think, Temari told Ueno Juro that Ina had gone to visit family for several weeks the next time he came by. He was a bit put out to learn that she had skipped town after he'd left very clear instructions not to, but he just spouted off some nonsense about 'smelling a rat,' which made no sense the context of their conversation, and toddled on.

He still wore his trenchcoat and fishing hat, but had replaced the toothpick with an unlit cigar, still wrapped in plastic.

Temari would have been as willing to believe that Ueno Juro was from another planet as she was that he was a detective.

{}{}{}{}{}

Baki was a fine shinobi, a valuable Council member, an excellent teacher, and an all-around standup guy, but he had a bad habit of wandering into places unannounced.

His former students didn't complain about it much— he'd never complained about any of _their_ little eccentricities when they were younger, and God knew they'd been an eccentric bunch in the day— but it was rather jarring to glance up from reading a book, or eating dinner, and realize that he'd let himself into the house again. Someone really needed to put a bell on him.

This history of inadvertently sneaking up on people was half the reason that Gaara always kept the door to his office closed. He got sick of shouting 'Enter!' five thousand times a day, but it beat jumping out of his skin every time Baki came up to get his signature on something. He rarely bothered to knock, of course, but at least the sound of the door opening gave some warning of his approach.

_Some_ warning. Not always enough.

The door flew open.

"Kazekage-sama, I've just gotten-"

Gaara started and slammed one of his desk drawers on his finger.

Baki stopped in his tracks.

"I forgot to knock," he said. "I apologize."

Gaara flexed his hand experimentally. His ring finger looked more crooked than he thought it had just a moment ago. The day was off to a brilliant start.

"It's fine," he said crossly. "What did you need to see me about?"

Baki shifted his weight a tetch to the right, and focused his gaze on Gaara's left cheek. "I have some news," he said. "_The Suna Wire_ just called me—they wanted a comment on the Back-Alley Butcher case."

He met his eyes again, and added almost apologetically, "His trial's been delayed."

Gaara's heart sank into his stomach.

The story of the Back-Alley Butcher would make a gripping made-for-TV movie one day, but he had been hoping to never hear another word about it again in life.

Seven months ago, the proprietor of The Soup 'N Sub Stop had fallen madly in love with his favorite hourly girlfriend, convinced her to run away with him, and whisked her off to begin a new life together in a sleepy little town in western Wind Country. They got a farmhouse and a produce stall in the marketplace, and probably would have lived out their days in wholesome, small-town bliss, had the lady's boss back in Suna not viewed her departure as a violation of their unwritten contract.

Lacking the time and resources to track his wayward salesgirl down himself, he'd reported her to the police as a missing person, most likely kidnapped or murdered by her best customer since he, too, was gone. The police had dutifully taken down the complaint, but declined to investigate on the grounds that the man who'd filed it was an obvious liar.

That should have been the end of it, but it was not. In a catastrophic mix of yellow journalism, group psychology, and the lingering fear all adults have of things that go bump in the night, what had started as a slightly unsavory love story turned into a witch hunt.

The _Suna Wire_ reporter tasked with writing the crime blotter had been covering that same feature for three years, and was ready to move up in the world. Unfortunately for him, Suna had a real dearth of sensational crimes, and every day that someone did not rob a bank, he drifted further into obscurity. Just as he was getting ready to resign himself to a lifetime of reporting on drunk and disorderly behavior, he had stumbled across the manager's complaint in the police log, and been struck with an idea: if exciting stories would not fall into his lap, he would chase them down. Or make them up.

Ladies of the night were not known for their strong community ties, and so it wasn't unusual for them to vanish into the ether without leaving a forwarding address. Only a handful of these cases were ever brought to the attention of the authorities, but there were enough of them on record to spin into a special report in the _Wire_'s Sunday edition. The evidence did not suggest that any of these disappearances were related, but the tone of the article certainly did, and by Wednesday morning, the people of Suna had lost their collective shit.

The public demanded drastic action. Both Gaara and the Chief of Police had tried to explain that the sort of action they had in mind was very expensive and probably unnecessary, but the papers had already nicknamed Mr. Soup 'N Subs 'The Back-Alley Butcher' (it was less accurate than 'The Deli Owner Who Might Be A Serial Killer,' but much snazzier) and no one wanted to hear anything to the contrary.

After a two month search, the Butcher had been tracked to the small town he was residing in, and Baki was dispatched to bring him in for questioning. Ironically, learning that he was accused of a crime he hadn't committed inspired him to commit an actual crime; upon being told by a helpful townsperson that a Suna shinobi had been asking after him, the Butcher had marched into a local bar, demanded to see the owner, and informed the gentleman that he was going to murder his face off. He was evidently under the impression that Baki had been sent by his ladylove's former employer, and that the barman had tipped him off to their whereabouts—an honest misunderstanding, but one with unfortunate consequences.

In the wake of his proclamation, a bar fight of epic proportions had ensued. Chairs were thrown, bottles were smashed, noses were broken, and the mayor, who'd happened to stop by for a drink, was stabbed with a corkscrew. Baki arrived before things turned tragic, but sufficient havoc had been wreaked for the town to request they be allowed to try the Butcher for assault and battery rather than handing him over to Suna, where he hadn't done anything even a little bit illegal.

Gaara had acquiesced with deep gratitude. He wanted nothing further to do with the whole mess by that point.

In the end, the episode had gone down in the annals of Suna's history as a cautionary tale about the power of the media, 'I'm going to MURDER YOUR FACE OFF!' became a popular catchphrase around the village for a few weeks, and the Godaime Kazekage would forever remember the incident as the second most traumatic event of his career, right after that time he'd died.

"I told them I would call back," Baki was saying. "I wanted to talk to you before I gave them an answer."

Gaara closed his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on. "Did they tell you the reason for the delay?"

"There's some sort of issue with a witness statement. They're working on fixing it, but the woman at _The_ _Wire_ didn't know the particulars."

"Very well." He drummed his fingers on the desk a few times, then realized he was copying Kankuro and stopped. "Tell them… tell them we have no comment."

Baki's eyes crinkled in dismay.

"I am assuming it is one of their witnesses they are having trouble with?"

"Yes. I think so."

"Then it isn't Suna's problem. A representative from the town can contact us if they need our help. Until then, we will not get involved."

There was a pause.

"Kazekage-sama," Baki said slowly, "correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Kankuro handled most of your official communications with the media. I wonder if it might be helpful to ask him to write a reply?"

Gaara narrowed his eyes.

"Not as your adviser, but as… a consultant, perhaps?"

"No," said Gaara, more harshly then he'd intended to. "I don't believe that will be necessary. You may call them back, and tell whoever you spoke to that the office of the Kazekage has no opinion on this subject."

He picked up a pen and grabbed the nearest piece of paper in effort to appear busy. "That will be all, Councilor."

Baki stood there for a second, looking surprised at this frosty dismissal. Then he let out soft puff of air and saluted.

"As you like, Kazekage-sama."

Gaara watched him leave the office. A queasy feeling was settling into the pit of his belly, the kind that often follows a nasty shock once the adrenaline begins to ebb away.

He had a crazy wish that his authority as Kazekage would allow him to declare certain topics taboo, and mentioning them in his presence could be punishable by… an afternoon in the stocks, or something.

If he did have that power, he'd be the first person out in the town square chucking rotten fruit at anyone caught dredging up the Back-Alley Butcher affair. It was a big cesspool of bad memories and painful realizations, and thinking about it now was like sticking a finger in a wound that had just begun to heal.

And speaking of fingers, the one he'd slammed in the drawer hurt like a motherfucker.

Gaara examined his hand, wondering how one could tell if they'd broken a bone. Inciting him to mental cursing was an ominous sign, surely?

{}{}{}{}{}

Ino dumped out her makeup case onto the edge of the bathroom sink, and, for the third time, began trying to pack it so that it would close.

She and Shikamaru and Chouji were going home for New Year's early the next morning, before the rest of the household rose for breakfast. They would only be in Konoha for around ten days before heading back to Wind Country, and while a part of her was eager for the break, part of her was dreading it.

She just _knew_ everybody would be asking her what had happened with Tokuma. He hated gossip, especially gossip that involved him, and Sakura wasn't very adept at spreading news through the grapevine, so she was guessing most of their friends had only heard half the story. Her parents might not have heard anything, since she hadn't gotten any anxious phone calls from her mother.

And, of course, the Yamanakas, Naras, and Akimichis always celebrated New Year's Eve together, which meant she'd be spending her holiday hearing 'Oh, Ino-chan, where's that nice Hyuuga boy you've been seeing?' and telling everyone in three clans that her boyfriend had ditched her for someone else. There would be a great outpouring of sympathy, complete with awkward, one-armed hugs from people not generally in the habit of giving them and offers to set her up with single young men she had never seen or heard of. Concerned aunties would simper and sigh and command their sons to dance with her, and for one awful night, no one would treat her as the fun and lively social butterfly she was accustomed to being, but as an object of pity.

Ino was planning on drinking a lot of wine at the Akimichis' house this year.

She crammed her last lip gloss into the case, only to find that it wouldn't zip closed. She scowled. This was turning into the world's least fun game of Tetris.

As she began taking things back out, she ran through her mental list to-do list. She still had to pack her clothes, nag Shikamaru to pack his, and help Chouji finish up the mission progress report he'd be handing in to Tsuande-sama. Then she'd check back in with Shikamaru, probably end up stuffing his shit into a bag for him, and write out instructions on the care and cultivation of night-blooming cerei for Temari, who was going to look after the plant while she was away.

Personally, Ino thought taking it home with her would have only helped their case, since it would be harder to prove they'd stolen it if it was safely hidden in another country, but Shikamaru had told her she was spending too much time around criminals these days and insisted she leave it in Suna. He'd been getting obnoxiously ethical since deciding he wanted to be a professional diplomat.

That would probably help him in the long run, but not in this case. Ino had learned enough about the legal system to know that if she took full responsibility for stealing the cereus, she'd likely get less than the maximum fine and a stern talking-to. Life wasn't bad for first-time offenders. Unless they had such lofty ambitions as Shikamaru and Temari. Then they needed a spotless record, and even first-time offenses could mean unfulfilled dreams and a lifetime of resentment. Ino didn't think she liked that option.

No, the only thing to do was to turn herself in, but her accomplices were resisting. Having a felony on her record, even a really stupid one, would limit her career options, and she was only _slightly_ more to blame than they were, and blah blah blah, she was kind of over it. Tsunade-sama wouldn't send her on any more foreign relations type missions, true, and she might suspend her for a while, but that would be the worst of it. Working at the prison was already punishment duty for Konoha's misbehaving medics, and that was where Ino wanted to be anyway. She'd be a-okay with being labeled a criminal. If she didn't explain the nature of her crime, it would even make her look cool in front of her patients. Things would be just peachy for Yamanaka Ino, Convicted Felon.

Shikamaru and Temari persisted in the belief that this was the Biggest Deal Ever, though, and she didn't know where to start looking for Ueno Juro on her own, so her hands were tied until after the holiday. They'd agreed to discuss it more then, and hopefully reach a consensus on what to do about him. To Ino, this arrangement just sounded like the perfect way to generate some pointless angst, but whatever. Worriers gonna worry.

Someone knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in!" she called.

The latch clicked open.

"Yamanaka-san?" came a low, uncertain voice.

She tossed her bronzer into the makeup case and hurried into the next room.

"Kazekage-sama!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

He was standing just outside the room, looking like he felt out of place and cradling his left hand.

"I hope I'm not intruding," he said, then stopped. He was staring at something beyond her with slightly widened eyes; Ino followed his gaze to the pile of underwear on her bed.

"Oh, don't mind that, they're clean," she promised.

His eyes went a bit wider. It seemed that wasn't the reassurance he was looking for.

"I was just packing for tomorrow," she continued, "but it's not a rush or anything. Did you need me for something?"

"I…" He cleared his throat. "I wanted to ask you a favor, if it isn't too much trouble. You're a medic, if I remember correctly?"

She nodded.

"I think I may have broken my finger." He glanced down at his hand. "If you have a few moments, I was wondering if you could…?"

"Sure! Come in and have a seat." She took a step back to allow him into the room, where he picked the chair next to the window and turned himself so that was facing away from the bed and heap of panties.

There was nothing at all unusual about casual acquaintances asking Ino for medical advice, but she had to say, she never would have expected it from the Kazekage. The guy had an entire hospital full of medics at his command, after all. He could tell them he wanted the hottest nurse in the place to come give him a bed bath ASAP, and she'd probably be in his office ten minutes later.

Suddenly, Ino had a mental flash of what it would be like if Jiraiya had become Hokage. _Nasty_.

"So what happened, exactly?" she asked, reaching for his hand. "I thought your sand shield could protect you from anything."

"From most things," he told her as she examined his injury. "I caught it in a drawer in my desk. I suppose even my sand couldn't move fast enough to stop it."

"Hmm." She sent a small pulse of chakra through his finger, mapping its internal geography by the way her energy filled the grooves and crevices of the bone.

"You have a hairline fracture," she announced. "It'll only take a second to fix, but it'll hurt. On the count of three, ready? One…two…"

She released a quick shot of healing chakra. The bone knit itself together; the Kazekage drew in a sharp breath and reflexively clenched his hand around hers.

"All done," she said cheerfully, patting him on the shoulder with her free hand. "Sorry I couldn't make it painless, but there are a lot of nerves in your fingers, you know. Oh, and it's still going to swell up, so you might want to get some ice to put on there."

He nodded, releasing her slowly. "Thank you."

"Not a problem."

He shifted in his chair like he wasn't sure yet if he wanted to get up and leave, or hang around a while longer. Was there another reason he'd come to see her, Ino wondered?

"So, are you ready for New Year's?" she asked, more for the sake of prodding him to speak than anything else.

The Kazekage lowered his gaze to the floor. "I suppose so," he murmured.

"I helped Temari and Ine work on your party," Ino supplied. "It's going to be really nice."

"I'm looking forward to it," he said in a monotone.

Somehow, Ino didn't quite believe him. The Kazekage was never a cheerful person, but the dark, distant expression on his face reminded her of a storm front blowing in, headed by the world's unhappiest rain cloud. It was plain to see that his smashed finger wasn't the only thing bothering him.

"Is something wrong, Kazekage-sama?" Ino asked, taking a seat on the bed. "You seem upset."

He glanced at her and then back to the floor. "I am fine," he said. "Nothing is wrong. I should be going—I hope you have a safe journey back to—"

He moved to stand, and Ino caught his sleeve with a surprised laugh.

"You don't need to run off!"she told him. "You aren't bothering me or anything, if that's what you're worried about."

He didn't pull away, but cast an uneasy look towards the door.

"Really," she assured him, giving a gentle tug back to the chair. "It's fine."

Ino was not easily intimidated—she wouldn't be hanging on to the ruler of Suna's clothing if she was—but the Kazekage had this certain look he would sometimes give people that made the fine hair on her arms stand on end. It wasn't an angry look, or an impatient look, or even a warning look; it was more like a test, like he could divine something very important about you just by holding eye contact long enough, and he turned that look on her now.

She couldn't tell by his expression what he was thinking or feeling. The way he stared, though, reminded her in equal parts of an enemy sizing her up from across the battlefield and a new lover seeing her nude for the first time, focused and guarded, brazen and loaded with meaning.

The sudden intensity of it was startling, and she felt an urge to tilt her head the way she always did when she posed for photographs, so that he would see her face from its most attractive angle. She refrained. That wasn't what he was interested in. What he _was_ interested in she couldn't say, but she had the sense that she was being looked into rather than being looked at, so creating the illusion of a jaw line like a supermodel was irrelevant at the moment.

"Are you this familiar with everyone?" he asked.

It sounded like a genuine question, not a reproach, so she smiled and said, "Only with people I like, Kazekage-sama."

He gave a slow, contemplative nod and lowered himself to his seat, but didn't say anything further.

"So!" said Ino, clapping her hands in an attempt to dispel the heavy mood that had settled in. "What's bothering you?"

"I got some unexpected news," the Kazekage told her. He frowned slightly and began fiddling with the finger she'd just healed. "It wasn't bad news, per se. It… I suppose it caught me off guard. That's all."

Ino waited for him to extrapolate, but he was more interested in his impromptu physical therapy session. Did he want her to twist his arm for details? Well, lucky for him, he'd picked a confidant pushy enough to do just that.

"What kind of news?" she pressed. "I mean, can you tell me what happened, or is it top secret Kage stuff?"

He shrugged jerkily. "It's not a secret, but it's not important, either. It, ah…" He cleared his throat. "It reminded me of things I would prefer not to think of."

"Such as?"

The Kazekage glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I am not certain you would understand."

"Well, you _can't_ be certain until you tell me, right?" Ino pointed out cheerily, folding her legs up on the bed. "And anyway, you came here to be healed, so anything you say afterwards is like, medic-patient confidentiality. I'm ethically bound to total secrecy."

His expression suggested that he knew it didn't work that way, but, haltingly, he began to speak.

"Some months ago, I… Suna had a… a scare. It turned out to be nothing, but the village became very…" He licked his lips, searching for the right words. "The village was very displeased with the way things were being handled. Some people felt the police had been derelict in their duties, and that I was… trying to help them avoid taking responsibility for their failure."

His mouth pinched into tight frown. "It wasn't true," he informed her. "They misunderstood. It was all over nothing, as I said. But the people of Suna were very angry, and they began to question my competence. And… and my integrity."

To say that Ino was surprised would be an understatement. She'd been expecting him to tell her Chizuko had written him, or he needed to find a date for the party, or something along those lines. They weren't intimate friends, after all, they were more like… break-up buddies. She wasn't sure if 'break-up buddies' were even a thing, but that was what they were, and she was going to look for ways to work it into conversations now because it _should_ be a thing.

Anyhow. This was exceptionally weird. Fortunately, though, Ino had a high tolerance for weird.

"That must have been hard," she said. It wasn't a very profound insight into the situation, but he seemed to find it encouraging.

"It passed quickly," he assured her, speaking with more confidence than before. "Once the truth was discovered, the village seemed to forget it had happened. But I..."

He trailed off. When he started talking again, it was with great precision, like he was telling her something critically important.

"Being held in high regard by the public offers limited personal satisfaction, because as a whole, the public is very fickle. Individual people are more constant in their loyalties and affections, I think. Although there are some exceptions."

"That's true," Ino agreed.

The Kazekage nodded gravely. "Yes. But individual people are very difficult to form bonds with."

Ino wanted to giggle, because of _course_ it was difficult to form bonds with people when you acted so cold and distant, and then she felt guilty, because she'd already figured out that he didn't know how to act any differently.

Poor The Kazekage. He sounded like he needed some support.

"Well, I think we kind of have a bond, don't you agree?" Ino asked.

She swore she heard him take in a breath, but she didn't hear an exhale.

"I mean, we don't know each other all that well, and we don't see each other very often, but… we wouldn't be here talking right now if we didn't have _some_ kind of connection, would we?"

"…No. I suppose we would not be." The Kazekage's gaze was very solemn. He looked more like a man getting ready to declare war than a man chatting about friendship.

"Right. That's how you get close to someone anyway, you just start with something small."

Ino wound the end of her ponytail around her finger thoughtfully. "And I think you should relax more when you're talking with people," she added. "Like, don't worry too much about saying the wrong thing, or offending them, or making yourself look bad—just… you know, _talk_."

"Alright," said the Kazekage, frowning.

"What I mean is, if you act like 'The Kazekage'"—she included the air quotes here—"all the time, then that's all people will see you as. And political figureheads don't make great friends. Or boyfriends."

She cast him a sly look. Color rose to his cheeks.

"You should let people see that you have an actual personality more often. When we're just sitting around at dinner, for instance, no one will care if you say things that aren't all proper and politically correct."

She shrugged. "Most people like _me_ just fine, and I'm always saying whatever dumb thing pops into my head."

His lip twitched. "So I've noticed," he said, almost shyly.

Ino clicked her tongue in disapproval and leaned forward to swat his arm. The Kazekage's eyes followed the trajectory of her hand all the way back to her side.

"I was following your advice."

"Good! Just don't get carried away with it."

"I didn't."

"There was a very clear implication there that I'm dumb. I'm pretty sure that's verbal assault. Now I'm a victim of assault."

"Under Suna law, you physically assaulted me. That's an imprisonable offense, you know." His gaze flickered with amusement. "The Kazekages before me have apparently been very delicate."

Ino laughed, less because of what he'd said than because joking around with Sabaku no Gaara was kind of surreal. He tilted his head away, but she thought she'd seen a true smile on his face for a moment there. There may have even been a flash of teeth.

"I am going to go get ice," he said, standing up. "Thank you for repairing my finger. And for…"

He hesitated for a split second, which was all it took for his usual stiff, shuttered air to descend on him once again.

"Thank you," he repeated. "I hope you have a safe trip back to Konoha and a pleasant holiday. I will see you on your return."

He threw one last unsettled look at the underwear on the bed and hurried out the door.

"Same to you, Kazekage-sama!" Ino called after him.

Left alone with her thoughts and panties, she let out a contented sigh. Was there anything more satisfying than dispensing sage advice to those in need? Sure, he'd pulled one of those 'two steps forward, one step back' moves in the last minute there, but he'd left in a marginally better mood than the one he'd come in with. That was progress. A full step of progress, in fact.

She would make _such_ a kickass therapist.


End file.
